Removing R3 Side Skirts
 

I was wondering how difficult would it be to remove the skirts from an R3.. is it just clips/screws or is there an adhesive as well?

Winter is coming, if it's an easy job I was thinking of removing them.

There are those white plastic body clips all along the outside front. Underneath those big plastic black ones like on the stone guard.

I don't think it will be easy.

:( Alright I guess I'll just leave them on. Thanks!

Grabbed a picture of the clips. It looks like you may be able to slide it off? Give it a try & good luck?



https://www.rx8club.com/attachment.p...1&d=1321988078

Thanks, I'll see what I can do this weekend.

removing R3 sideskirts is a fucking bitch.

I don't think I really need to say any more on this subject...

Does that mean it didn't go so well

God knows how many comedians are out of a job and this guy's trying to be funny!!!! :crazy:

I'm just kidding with you.

However, no. lol Put simply, it didn't. Yes, you need to slide them forward in order to free them from the clips. However, the rear of the sideskirt wraps the body and goes into the rear wheel well. What this means is the you have to pull that out away from the car so it will clear the side of the body underneath, THEN slide it forward. The problem this created was putting tension on the plastic arms attached to the sideskirt itself (these are what the little white clips slip and lock into). Now, my car has all of 12,000 miles on it and saw rain TWICE since I got it almost 3 years ago (the day I bought the car, and about a year after I had it whenever a torrential downpour rolled through town for about 10 minutes on an otherwise 100% sunny day) and yet pushing the skirt forward snapped nearly all of those plastic arms molded into the sideskirt. The attachment points (yes, only points of contact, these little arms are NOT solid at all) are very, VERY thin.

I'm sure nearly all of us have assembled plastic models at one point or another in our life. Well, you know how all the pieces were molded into small plastic frames that you could just snap the pieces out of? The plastic arms of the sideskirt honestly probably didn't take much more pressure to snap than pulling the pieces of a model out of the plastic framing.

This does suck, and is a HUGE hassle. Now, I am in need of reattaching these, and I'm sure a body shop will probably want WAY more money than what it really should take to do. Depending on how everything looks whenever I go to put the skirt back on, I may find an alternative way to attach the skirts back to the body to allow easier removal and avoid future breakage.

Was there any adhesive holding it aswell. Maybe you can purchase new clips and just reinstall, not really sure. I do feel for you, and it does suck when sh*t like that happens.
I have to pull front bumper off to install oil cooler screens and even though I've done the search and found DIY on removal, which looks easy enough theres always that what if part you worry about. I'm going to attempt this weekend

mysticalsnake

dont worry about having to re attach them, just ship them to me and ill take them off your hands :)

No, no adhesive what so ever actually. Those clips are places about every 6-8" or so. I guess even Mazda thought it would be overkill to use adhesive with that many clips lol

EricB: I only took off the passenger sideskirt anyways :-P lol I was having a night run with my friend and when I took a blind corner something scraped the skirt itself. Had we gone during the day I might have been able to see whatever it was and avoided it, but several of the roads we drive down are actually a tad bit safer at night due to the fact that people have a habit of not staying in their lane on a 2-lane road so night time gives us the factor of being able to see their headlights coming and allows us to get ready to have to do something if we need to.

It's sad that I know exactly what you are talking about since my driver side skirt broke off on one of the snow days around here and those little moldings pretty much all broke real clean. Can't even tell where they used to go without eyeing it with the clips that remained on the car. Clips are strong as hell though...But till this day (it happened 2 years ago) I still haven't gone around to replacing the skirt which I got quoted over 700$ for at the dealer...I was hoping you would have had better luck. :tear: I believe you will have to do some plastic welding and the skirt is made of polypropylene(sp?) from all I could figure out. Good luck!

Yeah, I haven't really TRIED to figure out how to get it all back together, but I'm sure there is a way other than just getting a new one. If nothing else, I've been wantingthe M'z Custom front bumper anyway and could order the entire M'z Custom front, rear, and sides (sides and rear are same as R3) for less than it would cost to buy just the front bumper and get a new sideskirt from Mazda. I may actually look into attaching it in a "less permanent" way. it attaches at the rear and the front, so I may take the time to find all the points of contact along the body and side to put some strong double-sided adhesive and have the proper clips at the front and rear of the skirt. I don't see me having a problem going that route as long as I find good points to use the adhesive.

Would any of you have a removed R3 sideskirt you could take a picture of and post up on here? The back side I mean, so I can understand the diagram a little better?

I bought a OEM pair to put on a GT. I have to drill the quarters, anyone pull them off? Also, I have one mount that needs to be repaired, what to use?

When I installed a set on my non-R3, I removed almost all the little white clips & used VHB tape. On the S2, manual transmission, there is a small "mud guard" in front of the rear wheel. You pull that off and I think (if I remember right) there is one pre drilled hole there to use. The front of the side skirts will be held on by plastic clips in the wheel well area. So you only need to support the middle of the side skirt with the VHB tape.

EDIT: I forgot, the bottom inside uses the stone guard clips so it is held on there as well.


One side I got on really really nice but the other side there is a bit of a gap. I'm too lazy too redo all the taping on that one side so I just left it. It's been almost a year and the side skirts haven't budged.

Sorry don't have any recent pics but you can see a couple here, I have the white non R3.

https://www.rx8club.com/rx-8-multimedia-photo-gallery-6/series-ii-red-white-blue-225046/

I had this exact same issue. I did it all last weekend and my skirts are at the shop now getting painted. I made metal brackes for the mounts, drilled holes in the metal brackets, and re-attached them using epoxy resin. I also drilled my holes under the doors and in the rear quarter and front fender. When I can get my pics pulled off my phone to my computer I'll post them up. Was not an easy task!

Okay here's a picture of my bracket repairs. Let me start buy saying I got the R3 side skirts used and 3 of the mounts were broken completely off and 2 of the mounts were only broken at one point. So 5 mounts needed repair total. I took a roll of some gutter-type metal (thin aluminum) and used tin snips to cut the shape shown in the picture. I then folded them to contour the edges of the mounts and ran a screw through both sides of the plastic mount to attach. I then drilled several small holes in the hollow area under the plastic mount through the aluminum (for the epoxy to ooze through and grab onto) I cut a little tab on the side to be bent into the holes in the sides of the mounts.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/62699382@N02/6903428154/http://www.flickr.com/photos/62699382@N02/6903428154/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/62699382@N02/
To the upper left of the picture you can see a blue colored piece of aluminum I cut. I used this type of bracket to repair the mounts that had not come completely off the side skirt. I drilled some small holes in the square area and placed it under the mounts that were still attached at one point on the skirts. I folded the little tab over through the hole and slathered epoxy resin on the skirt and pressed my little aluminum mount down onto the epoxy and squished some of the epoxy through the drilled holes (not pictured) and voila they seem to hold about as good as the OE mounts. I know my instructions may be kind of hard to follow but if you have seen the back side of an R3 side skirt this should make sense.

Any help on these? Some of the tabs are missing, and some are broken.

If you can see exactly where the tabs used to be mounted you could try my repair idea. I didn't have holes in the body pre-drilled (mounted on pre-2009 RX-8) so for mine I could just be close and drill the hole to match the mount. Those little white clips that attach it to the body of the car are about 3 buck a piece though!

Broken side skirt clips, need help
 

I had a similar issue, rode up a curb and came down on my side skirts and broke the two rear clips. Could someone please tell me where I might be able to find replacements?
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...80323a5557.jpg


My Spirit R :)


https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...ba8b0ceae0.jpg


This is how the side skirt sits after the clips broke


https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...ba18be57b4.jpg


This is a view of the broken clips

You can get new clips from any Mazda dealer in person or online.....................

Well yea.. but to be sure, my car is an import and dealers in my country wouldn't carry these things. I made this post as soon as it happened (before I went searching online). I want to make sure i'm shipping the right rocker clips for my car.

Thanks for the reply, btw.

PM Sent to you re: new clip help.

OK here are the Clips for your Spirit R RX-8 or any R3 or S2 which has those OEM Side Skirts installed.

There are a total of 24 or 12 each side...this is the OEM Mazda Part Number G18K-51-SJ3

Mazda Parts - Discount factory (OEM) Mazda parts and accessories at Park Mazda OEM Parts

These particular clips are used in many Mazda models from year 2000 BJ Mazda 323, to current CX-9, NC MX-5 and Mazda 2, 3, 5 and 6.