Project Isuzu VehiCross: Part 5 – Bodywork Round 1

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The last bit of interior work that needed attention was the spare tire cover.  The spare is interior mounted (which is why the rear door looks so weird) and is held on with four plastic knobs.  The knobs will become brittle over time and inattentive owners can easily twist them off if they’re too forceful.  Our VX was missing these.  Fortunately, MegaPDC still carries these brand new, so we ordered a set.  While they came, we used some zip ties to hold the tire cover on.
For reasons unknown to me, MegaPDC sent us three red knobs and one gray (some VX’s came with a boring gray trimmed interior for reasons unknown to anyone outside of Isuzu).  We ended up sourcing a used knob to fill in the gap.  We also ordered the rubber grommets that provide the friction to keep these tight.  
A little cleaning of the cover panel and with the addition of new knobs, our trunk looks just as it should.
The cladding panel on the passenger door was missing one of its retaining screws.  All of the cladding is also secured with molding tape.  This is annoying, as the idea of the cladding was to let the cladding take the brunt of off-roading and parking lot damage and make it easy to replace.  Replacing cladding is actually very time consuming and annoying (as we will soon find out with the bumper).  Anyway, the tape had lost its adhesion and this panel was pulling away.  Once again, we turned to the used Isuzu market and picked up some screws (from the same seller who sold us the extra tire cover knob).
We removed a few more screws and then placed some thin 1” wide 3M body kit tape over the old strips of tape.  We used some denatured alcohol to clean the tape surfaces before we applied it.  Then we stuck it down and replaced the screws.
Much better.  However missing that screw for so long has warped the cladding panel slightly.  We may need to take a heat gun to it to help bend it back into shape.

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