How to install 96+ OEM Sideskirts on a 94-95 6gc, finished both sides... updated 05/25/06 Options

[azian_advanced]

How to install OEM 96+ Sideskirts on a 94-95 Celica
-------------------------------------------------------------

Tools used:
- Double-Sided Bonding Tape
- Power Drill
- 5/32" Drill Bit
- 3/16" Drill Bit
- 3/8" Drill Bit
- Vice Grip and a piece of rag cloth
- Pair of Shears/Scissors
- Phillips Screwdriver
- A set up needle pics (to remove the grommets)
- A tire iron or equivalent for removing lug nuts.

Note: You can buy the double-sided bonding tape at most body shop supplies.. i used the bodyshop mounting tape for the driver side and wal-mart type for the passenger side. the Pro-Form brand was thinner and bonded stronger than the wal-mart one but cost twice as much (Pro-Form: $7, Walmart: $3). i'd suggest you get the best bonding tape you can find at the body shop supply store.


Parts needed:
- The sideskirts themselves ($217 USD from the dealer)
- 9 x 90467-09185 Clips ($.98 USD each)
- 2 x 90189-06006 Grommet, Screw (~$1 USD each)
- 2 x 90159-60414 Screw ($.52 USD each)

Note: Not all the screws and grommets listed in the sticky are necessary, the ones listed above is all that's really needed. i've wasted about $35 getting them all when i should have only spent $14. so don't do what i did.


Print this for reference







Ok.. so after i've picked up the screws and grommets from the dealer, i jumped right on to the installation.. since this was my first time doing this, i spent most of my time thinking and planning how to get these on and making sure everything is done right.


First of all, these skirts initially came off a white 96 ST202 in Japan and then purchased them through ebay. you may order them straight from your local Toyota dealer but will cost you a pretty penny. fyi, it may cost you around $162.89 USD each from ToyotaWorld.

the pic below shows the skirts being sanded in my garage.
if you've got used skirts, there are clear adhesive protecters stickered on at the bottom rear of the skirt. these came stock and will need to be removed before sanding. to do this i used a torch to lightly heat it up and some bumper sticker removal spray (Goo Gone will work too) to help pull it off.






Getting Started
------------------
-Jack up the car on both sides (front and rear) and let it rest on jack stands at all four corners, try to raise it as high as possible so you'll have more room to work under.


-Remove all four wheels.


This post has been edited by azian_advanced: Jan 17, 2010 - 8:25 PM

[azian_advanced]

Procedures
-------------
1. so i've tried lining up the skirts to the body but the front mudguard was in the way..
so the first step is to remove the mudguards which btw was very easy... simple enough, 3 bolts along the front and 1 hidden underneath.






2. now that i've got the skirt held up against the body, it's obvious to see that the 'little white pegs/clips' are in the way. in this case, you can either: a) drill holes through the body and plug them in or b) just remove the white clips and use double-sided tape later (which i did). i would not recommend 'a)' because then the holes are more prone to creating rust in the future. anyway, to remove the clips simply slide them off (though it will take a little bit of muscle to snap off **kisses biceps** )






3. with the skirt held up to the car and if you take a peek underneath, you'll notice that the 'rubber plugs' that some members have been talking about have no function or purpose with the installation of the skirts. which begs the question, "what are the rubber plugs for?"... i'll let you try to figure that one out yourselves....
anyway, it's clear that there were no pre-drilled holes on the bottom side of the car. it was mentioned however in another thread that some holes DO line up. there are 2 at the front of the skirts where the lower 2 screws of the mudguards were screwed in previously and there's another 2 which are at the bottom rear. the one furthest to the rear must be screwed in, the next one in front of it already has a pre-drilled hole (this is the only one)






4. there is no other choice but to.. DRILL HOLES! below, i used a hi-torque drill (is that what it's called?) with two different drill bits. i used a small one (the 5/32" one) first in order to create a reference point so that drilling with the larger drill bit (the 3/8" one) would make things a lot easier rather than using the larger one straight up which can cause it to slip left and right damaging the skirt and cause a mis-aligned hole.






5. here is the result after drilling the small hole, then the larger hole. btw, there are 5 holes on the left side that will need to be drilled along the bottom. but only 4 on the driver side (since there's one pre-drilled hole at the rear.. though i'm not sure why?).







6. you can now use the clips and snap them onto the bottom of the sideskirts. they're direct snap-ons and no tools are necessary. they work similar to rivets but only it's plastic, they don't require any tools to attach them on, plus they can be easily removed. you may want to only attach a few of them on. starting from the rear, attach one at the 2nd hole and one to the 4th hole. this will allow the skirts to be remain attached but still have some play in order to put on the double-sided tape required later on.









7. however, you'll notice that there is a gap at the front of the skirt to the front fender.



there is a part here that's needed (see pic below)... the skirts are made with a bulge for this 'fender protector' to fit inside.




but there is no need to purchase these since you can just modify your existing mudgaurds to fill in this gap. fyi, with the skirts on, the mudguards cannot be installed and are no longer needed. below is a pic of how i cut the mudguard using shears to fill the gap.






8. the end result should look like this. this should just fit inside






9. after screwing the front of the skirt which lines up with the mudguards holes, i pushed it against the body to see how well it lines up. i just so happens that it didn't line up as well as the passenger side did. so i adjusted the skirt and pushed on it to how i wanted it mounted on the car, then i drilled another hole using the 3/16" drill bit through the front of the skirt.







10. now with most of the bottom and front of the skirts finished, you'll need to screw the skirt from the rear. you can use your rag and vice grip to hold it in place. this may not be absolutely necessary but i would highly recommended in case you happen to grind the skirt on a speed bump and mess up the alignment of the skirt with the body. adding this screw will have some upper rear support for a more stable skirt. although, you'll notice there is also a gap in the rear part of the skirt but happens to line up nicely at the top exterior side, then it curves out to about an inch as you look at the bottom.



11. the best place to screw the skirt is at the top part where it lines up with the body. here i have a pic of the hole that's been drilled through the skirt and the wheel well. the screw with plastic grommet are shown below.






12. here's how it looks when it's screwed in. although the head of the screw may be disturbingly large, it won't be as noticeable if you've got wide rims. i don't mind the look though, but hey that's just me. you can paint it to match your car if it bothers you though.






13. for this next step, you'll need to remove the rear screw (step 12) and the front screw but have the bottom clips still attached in order to hold the skirt up. this was only necessary to ensure that the skirts fits nicely when bolted on. this is in preparation for step 14.






14. now for this step, you'll need to apply the double-sided tape so you'll need to make some space alont the top to work with. it's pretty straight forward from here.... just stick the tape all along the upper edge of the skirt and stick the skirt on ensuring that it's mounted the way you want it.
TIP: -Do not stick the double-sided tape right up to the edge, the thickness of the tape will create a small gap and will look kinda bad. Try placing the tape about 1/10th of an inch from the upper edge and run it all along from end to end.
-Also, be sure you wiped the skirts and the body clean from any dust or dirt for maximum stickiness..
-Use some masking tape as a marker so you'll know where the skirts should line up with the body.

here is how much space you've got to work with


the masking tape as a marker


now the tape goes on.


This post has been edited by azian_advanced: May 25, 2006 - 2:29 PM

[azian_advanced]

15. now carefully mount the skirt to the body and push on it until the adhesive from the tape hardens. be sure that you have it on right because you don't want to be pulling it off and mounting it back on over and over again.. obviously this will wear out the adhesive. next, you can screw in the front and rear holes of the skirts.








16. the mounting tape isn't as strong as i had hoped. there were some areas where the tape was coming off the body but still attached to the skirt. so what i did, i used some 'super-glue' and glued it back on. be cereful with this step not to get any on your hands and the exterior part of the skirts. it won't be as easy to remove with just GooGone or any other type of adhesive remover. i don't intend on removing the skirts from the car which is why i used SuperGlue. but if you are removing them in the later future, use something else like epoxy.




17. Congratulations.. you are now finished! but be sure you look over everthing ensuring all the clips and screws are installed and that the skirts are nicely fitted to the car. Now, if you haven't gotten a break after all this, go grab yourself some beer and celebrate!






Finishing Up
--------------
-Put your wheels back on.


-Remove the jack stands, and lower the jacks.





Total time:
-4 hours for the passenger side which included a few breaks here and there, extensive planning (well not really that extensive), and time wasted using trial-and-error to figure out what size drill bits would work best with the clips.
-2 hours for the driver side after knowing exactly what to do.




Before and After:






Finished Pics:







This concludes the installation of the OEM Sideskirts..



if there's anything i should add or if you have any questions, let me know..

This post has been edited by azian_advanced: May 25, 2006 - 2:35 PM

[ILuvMyCelica95]

this is great!

[azian_advanced]

bookmarked...


haha, can't wait to get mine

you have a 96, shouldn't you already have them?

Good job Sticky this!
Btw, how thick was the tape?

the tape used is about 1mm thin.. but still you want it to be as flushed as possible with the body.

[Batman722]

Impressive !!!

[eliaz]

The clips and screws you listed, was the for both sideskirts or just one?

Awsome post btw!

This post has been edited by eliaz: May 25, 2006 - 4:02 PM

[trdproven]

This is long and overwaited writeup that everyone keeps asking help for. Good work azian! I did almost the exact same thing except the clips on the bottom, I just used tapping screws.

[j0e_p3t]

thanks. i'm gonna need this sometime in the future.

[Starcraftjunkie]

When I save up enough for skirts, I'll definitely come give u a call.. lol.
Very nice job

[snapshotgt]

WOW! This is beyond sticky material, I vote BEST THREAD EVER MADE!

~snap

[Tech9ine]

im very unhappy that i have not seen your car in person yet, theres all of like, what..... 10 or so 6th gens in this city? i saw a green convertible today in east kildonan actually. But i'd like to see yours. especially now.

This post has been edited by Tech9ine: May 25, 2006 - 10:48 PM

[sinner96ST]

this is the best how-to i've seen in a very, very long time. a lot of thought, pictures, diagrams, and comprehensive answers went in to making it. sticky or archive it!

nice instructions, i wish more how-to's were done like this.

[Silver94CelicaOw...]

Sticky this ish. Very good write up, thank you.

[malpaso]

no words needed...

[azian_advanced]

thanks for the comments guys. i actually had a lot of fun doing this myself.. haha considering that i spend most of my time working two jobs and my fulltime studies. i've never done anything like this and still think of myself as a newbie. i knew there are many people considering to buy these skirts and are also afraid of the modifications needed for proper fitment. but i hope this answers most questions.

perhaps next time i'll write a how-to on how to install GT-FOUR blocks.. haha

[Starcraftjunkie]

I thought you did.. didn't you come to the Toyota meet?
I saw a dark "red" 6th gen at the meet when I was chilling with the other 6th gen owner (babycakes / 95gtschick). Was that you? The phillipino dude that bought a friend? That person took off after like 20 minutes tho.

im very unhappy that i have not seen your car in person yet, theres all of like, what..... 10 or so 6th gens in this city? i saw a green convertible today in east kildonan actually. But i'd like to see yours. especially now.

This post has been edited by Starcraftjunkie: May 26, 2006 - 2:07 AM

[azian_advanced]

yeah that was me.. haha.. i told my cousin about the meet and he wanted to go check it out.. so we went to see the cars right before i head off to work. i didn't stay too long, i didn't have enough time to go and meet the other people.

[Starcraftjunkie]

Then you did see my car there. It was the silver one with the bra on.. lol.. it's off now, now that the roads aren't as dirty/rocky.
Babycakes thought you dissed us by leaving w/o saying hi.. lmao


This post has been edited by Starcraftjunkie: May 26, 2006 - 11:20 AM

[Tech9ine]

I thought you did.. didn't you come to the Toyota meet?
I saw a dark "red" 6th gen at the meet when I was chilling with the other 6th gen owner (babycakes / 95gtschick). Was that you? The phillipino dude that bought a friend? That person took off after like 20 minutes tho.

im very unhappy that i have not seen your car in person yet, theres all of like, what..... 10 or so 6th gens in this city? i saw a green convertible today in east kildonan actually. But i'd like to see yours. especially now.

negative, i haven't been able to make a meet yet... I want to, but i was away for that one in may. Plus my car is far from showable quality, i have lots of bodyworks that needs doing and no money to do it with.