Rocker Panel Skirt Removal

[dckoi]

Starting to freshen up my 2004 S80 by painting all of the faded dark gray/black trim with SEM bumper coater paint. The easily removed pieces have been painted and look great and now I'm on to the not so easily removed pieces like the skirts that covers the rocker panels. Looking underneath it seems that they might be held in place with rivets. Same with where they attach to the wheel wells. The top part is covered by the sill plate so I can't see what's going on under there.

How exactly does the skirt come off? Do I drill out all the rivets? What about under that sill plate?

[dckoi]

I decided to dive in and just start removing. The front and back ends are held on with rivets, so I just used a dremel and a little drilling and they came out without having to remove the wheels from the car. 5in front and 2 at the rear, and the mud flaps in front came off with them which is good because I wanted to paint those also. Under the car there are push pins every foot or so, similar to what you find on the interior door panels. These are different though in that you push the pin in the center under it falls completely through the clip and into the frame of the car. The clip can be reused but without the pin in the center they aren't much good. If I can't come up with new center pins I'll have to check with the dealer or online. They are just 1/8" plastic rods, so there has to be something that can work.

Once all the pins and rivets are out, the skirt slides toward the front or back 3/4" to free up from square plastic clips every foot or so on the top of the door sill. That was a pain and some of the clips snapped or the slots the clips slid into on the skirt broke. It looks like enough of them are still intact to go back together fine.

[don_moore_1904]

This post was very helpful to me. I have a V70, and I'm pretty sure from your description and the parts diagrams found online the procedure will be virtually identical. Thanks for doing the hard work and posting what you found.