I can not take credit for this idea. I needed to remove mine prior to paint and lucked up on an archive thread where Fierodave recommended this. It worked so well I thought it worth documenting for folks.

You are going to use fishing line to cut them out. Similar to removing a windshield. Fierodave recommended 200# Spiderwire, but the best I could find at Walmart was 65#. Cut off about a 6' length to work with. Here it is:


I needed something to poke the spiderwire through the foam tape. I looked at my Exacto knife kit. Here is what i had


I put the square one in upside down to create my tool


Now just thread it like a needle


Remove the black, inner sail panel trim piece. Where to start? I chose the trailing end of the sail panel to start width. The upper side has a small relief above the sail panel which give you a little more room to get the tool through and in position to pass the spiderwire to the other side. Poke the thread tool through the foam tape from the engine side as in the pic. It is important to go through the foam. otherwire you can scratch the sail panel.


Now grab the thread from the front side. I used a tiny hook.


To cut the tape you can use a sawing action, but most of the time it was not needed. I simply held one had firm and pulled on the other. Watch to avoid the spiderwire hanging the inner sail mounting clips or edges of the sail panel itself.


The only difficult part is toward the front. Just work your way to the front and around. I only used a sawing motion if it was necessary. I ABSOLUTELY never stressed the windows trying to get them free, I let the spiderwire do all the cutting.

It took me about 20 minutes for both panels. Fierodave mentioned his personal record at ~5 minutes for both. Either way it works great. Good luck!

PS- In case you see something odd in the pics, I thought to write this up after I got the panels were out.

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I always just used kite string. It works better to use a braided string rather than something like fishing line, saws better. Though thats definitely an improvement over my poke and fish method of trying to get it in the window.

I've used an old "D" string off of my guitar - bronze wrapped works like a charm. I like the fishing line idea to! Good thread.

I thought the spider wire was braided. It is definitely not like regular monofilament fishing line. In fact, now that you mention it it appears like a really high grade kite string. Not smooth like mono.

[This message has been edited by sjmaye (edited 09-02-2008).]

I would like to see a pic of the sail panel area of the car with the covers off. I have contemplated just eliminating them in favor of an open look, but I don't know what's behind them.

Anybody got a pic?

Thanks,
Bob

I removed mine because they were cracked. Looks like hell.

Thanks for the pic. It IS kinda funky and not finished, but doing it is not out of the question. I could fabricate a panel to cover the solid area and 'glas up the trim edges. Got any more pics?

I like the idea of having the open area formed like a window frame - anybody ever done this?

I agree - that looks really good to me!