TECH Question - how to remove side trim?

Without destroying it...
If this has already been answered and someone can direct me to the thread, that would be great. I just searched all over and found a ton of other great stuff (well this is the HAMB, right?) but amazingly I found no threads on removing side trim.
I want to save the trim on my 55 Fairlane because it can be repaired (just a few minor dents really) but for now it needs to come off and the doors in particular look to be damn near impossible. The fenders are easy once they are removed, but the doors are hollow and welded together with only a very small access hole once you take the skins off the inside.
I assume most 50's cars with side trim have it mounted with similar bolts and clips so the answer would probably apply to a whole bunch of other cars.
So what's the trick?

 

depends on the car. If there's a nut, you have to take off the nut. If there is no nut, then it's probably a spring clip, and you might have to pry the clip out, but without applying force to the trim, only to the clip. A stiff bladed narrow putty knife sometimes works, or maybe two, one above and one below. The most important thing is patience, if it won't come off, leave it alone, go do something else, and come back later and stare at it for a while, see if you can try a new approach.

Hopefully a Ford guy will tell us all a special trick for those cars...

 

Can you cut a hole in the inside of the door and then weld it back? It would seem like your on the right track on the design, you just need to get to it from the inside

 

The clips that hold it on have about 5 or 6 small bolts going through the door/fender with a nut on the inside so the "right" way to do it is to get it from the inside as far as I can tell. The trouble is getting to the nuts in the doors. Cutting a hole in the door would work, but hopefully there is a less labor intensive method?
The putty knifes might do it but the clips are pretty solid and I would probably end up bending the shit out of the trim.
I don't really care about saving the clips either if that makes it any easier.
Thanks for the help so far - anyone else?

 

You really do want to save the clips! even if there are repro clips available, they usually don't fit worth a crap.

Maybe there's someone around with small hands that can get in there to pull the nuts off? or maybe you didn't take the windows out, and that would help?

 

I have found that most of the nuts are designed to be accessed somehow. Take the door panel off and see how many of them you can get too. Sometimes if you can just loosen the few you can't get to you can slide the trim along with the clip in the channel until you find an opening to remove the trim (not sure if a 55 Fairlane is like this).

If there is an opening to fit a socket in, that's how you get it off. If the socket won't fit in the hole, go get a cheap chinese socket and grind on it until it fits (the trim is worth more than a socket right?)

Hope that helps somehow.

 

sometimes when I'm really frustrated about getting at something it helps me to stop for a second and realize "a guy put this on and a guy can take it off" or vice-versa..there are hooked clip tools, sometimes the piece slides on from one end to the other leaving the clips in place..if there are nuts inside the door and you are thinking about cutting an access door go back to the guy thing...

 

try looking in a parts catalog for the clips to see if they have a picture, then you may be able to figure it out better form there

 

This might be the trick. I can get to at least 2 or 3 out of the 5 or 6 that are in there so that will hopefully be enough. If not, my 9 year old son will be put to work. I'm guessing his arms are smaller than the arms that installed it back in '55!

Thanks for all the help fellas.