I'm preparing the engine bay for paint so I need to get all of the plastic clips out. Anyone have any tricks or advice because the last time I did this I ended up breaking more than half of the clips.

question#2 Have you ever tried ordering them through Malloy? Wondering if you can order this assortment of clips and how much it would cost to do so....

 

i cant think of what all clips are in the engine bay i havnt really looked, but the easiest way is there is a tool that will get most types very easy...can think of the name, but it was my best friend in the bodyshop but with practice a flathead screwdriver can do the job pretty easy.

also for replacments, a lot of cars use similair ones so they cant be too hard to find. i know quite a few of the same clips we have on our cars are still used on a lot of brand new cars that i have seen.

 

I'm curious about this mystery tool

 

I've tried with screwdrivers but they just are not cutting it for me.

 

it looks like a chisel with the center v'ed out. It works on almost all clips. That and set of mini needle nose pliers. For clips, the bodyshop I went to had a large assortment of universal clips. Just go through find what you need and pay the owner. You could also try mazda, there haven't been any break thoughs in plastic clip designs so most are still used on current production cars.

 

I forgot you were a body man Mike, should have asked you in the first place.

thanks

 

yea what hes talkin about! haha i couldnt think of how to explain it. yeah its v`ed out and usually they have a handle like a screwdriver.

 

you think Eastwood stocks em?

 

http://www.toolsource.com/ost/produc...VKHSHDFW8V2T6A

I've ordered a bunch of stuff from these guys before. They're pretty quick shippers. And just for the record, Snap On makes a killer set of three panel poppers for about $80.

 

sweet

 

I dont see how this tool will help, i recently had my car repainted before fitting the 20b and the only clips that you could reuse are the ones you can get to the back of them , to be compressed to remove, the broken ones were ordered from mazda parts.

 

that is true. some of the clips seem to be on time use only. But I guess that's the point of this thread, to figure out if there are any tricks or if I'll just have to replace most of them.

how much do the clips cost roughly?... say like 50 cents a piece on average or several dollars a piece? With mazda parts it's always tough to predict.

-Rob