Lancia Beta Forum

Seem to be full of questions at the moment...Is there a procedure for taking off the roofline trim, would it be easier to release from the roof side of the trim, rather than the door side?...does that make sense?  Or is it best left alone, and just masked off?

Interesting question and one which I can't answer,  I would say though that leaving it on and masking isn't an  ideal solution I've seen that done once where the paint has started to lift at the edge getting a good key for the paint right next to the trim might be difficult

Thanks for that Rossocorsa...Yep, had a better look tonight and it's got to come off.  There are little screws on the inside of the door aperture holding the trim onto the body.  So I imagine once these are unscrewed, it'll be like a standard trim...tease off gently!

Hi Gengis

You're absolutely right, take the screws out and it does come off.

I'd remove it, the cheap original screws rust and the heads disintegrate, so what I do is remove the chromed trim, drill out the screws and use small ally pop rivets for the refit.  It's a bit fiddly on the re-fit but ultimately it works a treat  ;D

I've just done this and I would recommend it as the best, neatest method. If you're tempted to use some screws a little larger than original beware- where the trim goes down the front pillar anything longer than around 9mm will see the end of the screw touching the inside of the pillar and begin to distort the metal, pushing a tiny point shaped indentation into it from the inside. It very nearly happened to me yesterday! Luckily I was watching for it happening as I screwed in a stainless self tapping screw; with a light shining directly onto the pillar I noticed the pillar begin to move a tiny amount and I still had a couple of turns left on the screw so I withdrew it and luckily there was no damage done. Could've been a costly error though...
Also, another thing to remember when refitting these trims is to apply a tiny bead of sealant along the edge of the body before pushing the trim on. They had a none-setting seal, similar to a 'dumdum' type of stuff, right along the full length of it from the factory when new. This is, I assume, to provide a waterproof seal along the gutter where it joins the body, otherwise water would manage to get under it and it would become a perfect rust-trap.

Andrew.

Excellent detailed explanation, nice one Andrew!

Thanks guy's...sounds like a plan.