Removing Roof Rails

[cbay]

I was able to carefully remove all three panels on a roof rail with my hands. Took some photos to start to document the process. Note that these are photos of the passenger side rail.

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It was a bit tricky, but with a bit of courage and patience, I started with pulling the top edge of the front rail panel towards me. As soon as I felt some tabs unclip and the top edge was free, I slowly worked on pulling out the bottom edge. The last to go was a tab underneath the right/back side which I didn't expect.


First set of tabs. (from front to back / left to right)


Second set of tabs.


The third tab and the surprise fourth side tab.


Front panel off.


The middle panel was very easy to take off. I pulled from behind the right (rear-most side).


Here's the top view of the middle panel.


Close up of the screw. Torx, haven't checked what size just yet.


Back panel off. It's essentially the same as the front panel, just in reverse.


Close-up of the fourth tab at the rear. This should be the last to pull out / first to put back in.


Close up of the rear second set of tabs.

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I re-attached the front and back panels by first ensuring the side tab was slotted into the rail, and then pushing down first from the top, and then up from the bottom. The middle panel was just attached in reverse, short side first, then the longer side.

I haven't gone as far as unscrewing the roof rails, maybe I'll take some photos of this process during a swap

Also for anyone interested, these were taken with a Canon 7D with a 35mm f2. Shots straight from the camera, just resized. Had to bump up to 6400 ISO because of poor lighting in my garage. Also the colours are a little flat as I just realised I accidentally left the Marvels Cine colour profile on from when I last used the camera to shoot video.