[fbrown]

I recommend removing the skin as a last resort. The total labor involved will likely exceed 40 hours and could be quite a bit more depending on how much work you need to do. If there is a reproduction lid for your car or good used ones are available, I would consider replacement instead of repair.

To remove the skin.

1 - There were about 40 tiny welds holding the skin in place, for me most of these welds were very poor and were not holding. I drilled the balance out by center punching the middle of the spot and using a drill bit to remove the weld. A spot weld cutter would have been overkill and would have removed far more metal. These little spots were about 1/8" in size.

2 - Bend the folded lid up, I used a junk wood chisel and hammer to start lifting the edge. I continued the bend by using a claw hammer to grab the edge the chisel lifted and continue working around the lid. At some point the hammer becomes ineffective, so I returned to using the wood chisel pry the edge up, in a few places I used a 2x2 and hammer to beat on the edge. You should attempt to bend the edge as little as possible, since the fold has been work hardened. Bend it too much and it will break and you will be doing repair by welding the edge back together.

3 - There are tools that will bend the lip up for you. The tools range in the $80-$120 range. Considering that I don't have anything else on this project that would need such a tool, I elected not to purchase a tool.

4 - Plan on several hours to remove the skin. I gained practice from partially removed the skin on one of my doors. This made the skin removal faster since I had already developed some skills and tricks.

5 - Reinstalling the skin, for this I am going to buy some door skinning tool. The usually method without a door skinning tool is to use a hammer and dolly to bend the edge back. I was not able to get my door skin to clamp the door frame as tightly as the factory bend by using a dolly and hammer.


One last thing, if you do remove the skin be sure you have completed anything you want to do before reinstalling the skin. It very unlikely you will be able to remove and replace the skin again without the folded edge breaking.

There are many variations to remove door or trunk skins. Ask 6 different people and you will probably get 6 different answers and none of them will be wrong. Use whatever tools you have available that works for you.