So the side skirts of my W202 had been removed prior to my ownership because the previous owner had been doing some rust repair (surprise surprise). For some reason I’d worked it up in my head that putting them on was going to be really difficult but it turns out to be really easy! So, I thought I would walk you through installing the drivers side side skirt.
Here is the offending side skirt.
Note the little square holes on the bottom of the skirt? These ones:
They line up with these little round holes underneath your door sill.
Firstly open both doors about half one and then ‘dry fit’ the skirt. There are little white plastic clips at the far rear and front of the skirt that push into the body work and then close the doors as they will hold the skirt in place.
Now these are called expanding clips. There is a male part that pushes into the female part. Don’t put them together yet but make sure you have 6 of each for each side.
On the female bits you will note that one side has a round lip and the other a square lip. These collate to the round hole on the door sill and the square hole in the skirt. It basically sits between the two. To get it in there put your hand in the gap between the skirt and the chassis and push it in.
Worry about getting it in place on the skirt than the sill at the moment as when you push the skirt back up the clip should just slot into place. Then push the male bit in, it should click twice and then that section of the skirt will be secure! Repeat six times and you have the bottom secure.
Now for these little chaps.
Peel back the top of the skirt and you will see little dimples. That dimple pushes into the grrove on this clip just above my thumb and the two little hooks underneath it clip into place in a groove in the skirt just ahead of them. Push them on like so and then put the psuh in clip into the little hole in the top of the door sill and press down until it clips into place.
You now have one secure side skirt!
See! Nice and straight forward! I hope this will be of help if you got a car without side skirts or, like me, you thought they would be more difficult than they are!
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