I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANYTHING YOU DO TO YOUR OWN PARTS, USE THIS WRITE-UP ONLY AS A GUIDE.
Background: There are two possible reasons you may want to modify a set of RHD Door Sill plastics to fit your LHD car (or vice versa!).
- Your original door sills are scratched beyond belief, and you've found a cheap set of RHD sills you'd like to make use of.
- You've acquired a set of door sills specifically designed to accept a pair of Stainless Steel 10th Anniversary Sill Plates, but realized that because they're designed for a RHD car, they won't work in yours and you're too picky to settle on hacking up a set of LHD sills to work.
FAQs:
Question: "But the holes for the clips on the sill are in the same spots on either side of the car, why can't I just clip them in and go?"
Answer: The hood release lever is located in the kick panel. Just like the driver, the release is located on the other side of the car in a RHD unit vs. a LHD one.
What you need for "tools":
- Set of R + L door sill plastics from your LHD car that you no longer wish to use (for most people's interests, these are your original ones).
- Set of R+L door sill plastics from a RHD car that you wish to put into use (for most people's interests, these are your new ones).
- A soldering iron (or other tool you've found to use, ex: Dremel)
- A utility knife
- A strong adhesive
- A beer or cola
What you need to do:
You need to remove the kick panels from all four door sills you have (2 old ones, and two new ones). After separating all of the pieces, you need to reattach your old kick panels to your new door sills. The old door sills, and WrongHandDrive kick panels can be thrown in the trash, or you might want to sell them on eBay or MR2.com/MR2Trader.com to someone with a RHD car.
Make sure your buyer understands the remaining parts will only fit a RHD car.
Do this to all four door sills/kick panels you have in front of you!
Flip over the first sill and check to see how the kick panel is attached to the door sill plastic.
The parts are attached by these plastic spot welds. The kick panel and door sill were originally separate parts, plastic welded together at the factory. There are pins on the kick panel that fit through holes on the door sill that were melted over to create one piece.
I chose beer.
Heat your soldering iron until hot. Make sure you use a tip that you're not fussy about, because it's going to get covered in melted and burnt plastic.
Rub the hot soldering tip in a circular motion on the spot weld. Don't push too hard, just enough to get the plastic to soften. Start on the highest weld and lightly pry the parts apart with your free hand. (Don't pry too hard, because if you bend the plastic too much it will discolour) If you melt too deeply into the plastic, you will melt through the front of your kick panel, and it won't look good anymore, so just melt until it pops. You may find that using a Dremel tool to cut away the plastic works better, but I found the soldering iron worked just fine.
Once the plastic pops apart, stick some cardboard from your beer/pop box between the parts so the hot plastic doesn't melt back together.
Continue to pry the pieces apart and break all 7 plastic welds on the door sill.
Separate your two pieces.
Clean up the welds on the kick panel by heating and smoothing them with the soldering iron. You might want to sand them down or cut them with the utility knife. I found that melting them worked well.
Also smooth down the face of the sill plastic.
Now they're apart! After you've done this to all of them, decide which ones you're going to put back together
The new ones that accept the stainless sills should be pretty obvious, and the proper kick panels should too. Whether you decide to reattach the other pieces is up to you!
Put a light line of glue along the sill plastic where it will meet the kick panel (I'm going to try Krazy Glue
but I haven't tested it yet so don't blame me if it doesn't work well or melts through your plastic. I'm going to test it on some old door sills I have first). Line it up right the first time, this is your only shot! Then stick the parts together, hold them until the glue sets and you're done!
If you do not feel comfortable with this, I will do it for you for $40US/set not including shipping and I will guarantee that it's done right and looks great!
Hopefully this helps someone
