“Infamous” Trim Panel Issue

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Tyrah with 1 of 8 panels… some of the tabs came off with it… some stayed on the van.

If you can believe it, Mercedes is putting out vans that leak out of the factory. I won’t talk about it much, because it’s fairly well covered in these links, but did want to make it my first point in case people are unaware of it:

• A good overview… https://radvanadventures.com/2016/11/27/leaking-into-sprinter-cabin-space-a-cautionary-tale-of-terrible-design
• A detailed forum discussion… http://sprinter-source.com/forum/showthread.php?t=42065
• Shows you that some pressure might be necessary… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1oZabfd59c . But, I expect we will also be pushing out from the back, which hopefully make this part a little bit easier.

Progress:

• Tyrah starting in on the task

Showing the Harbor Freight tool used to pry the panels and clips off, before sealing

We will be using black window sealant so that it’s easy to see if it’s come through the body or not. No awards for beauty behind trim panels… function comes first in this case.

Here are some videos of what we ended up doing… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHRfDl6Vzl0

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