The PO put fiberglass rocker panel covers on my car. They look good but they are rivited in and I would like to remove them on occasion to clean out the dirt and crap that collects behind them. Is there an easy way to remove the rivits and covert to screws? are these usually rivited or not?

You usually drill out rivets.

Are they riveted on the top and bottom. The stock rockers are riveted on the top but screwed on the bottom. I've just unscrew the bottom, crack it open a little and let the dirt out.

If they used the factory style rivets (plastic) then all you do is push straight down in the center of them and the little pin slides out. Use a small nail punch or sumthin like that. If they used metal rivets, I would say just remove the lower screws and bend the rocker out a little and spray up into it. Fiberglass should give enough to allow for that. Perhaps the best option however, would be to take off the fiberglass ones and put back on the metal stock ones and use the factory hardware. Of course that last option is a bit $ intensive and would depend on your tastes. I like the aftermarket ones with the raised PORSCHE letters but some hate them. Your call, but I cant see anything wrong with just spraying from the bottom. It would clean it out for sure.

_Chris

I was just reading about this, it seems if you remove the 3 screws on the bottom of the rocker panel this will allow you to pull the panel away from the car and clean out the area without having to remove the whole panel.

Good call on the bottom screws, I need to look at them again, I seem to think that they may have rivited the bottom on also, but if so I'll pop the bottom rivits off and get at it that way, then I can put screws in instead.

just drill them out with a small drillbit, barely wide enough for the center pin. you don't want to drill through and make the hole bigger.

then put them back on with screws ...
Andy

Just take a flat blade screw driver and tap the top of the rivit off with a hammer! They pop right off! I did this the other day on the "Free 914" in Napa!

Jeff

I'm not sure I'd do the flat blade screwdriver method on fiberglass rockers, I think it would be too easy to crack them.

The rivets drill out so easy I'd put them back on the same way (unless you want to take them off more than, say, once a year).