I need to repaint my tall Evo X tall spoiler, a wicked white car with a blue spoiler doesn't quite do it for me. When I repaint, I prefer to loose all the plastic so the paint job is done right. I hate half doing anything.

Here is where I am at. I removed the visible screws that appear to be holding one of the plastic pieces in place. The plastic piece didn't want to budge. With a little prying, the plastic piece refused to pop off. At this point I am lost. I'm not quite in the mood to break any of the plastic pieces. Heck, greyhound lost one of the end caps as it is.

I have been searching and have found a few threads asking the same thing, but all the threads ended up being hijacked by other topics after someone said they knew how, but never said how.

Thanks for any info.

 

I just picked up an octane blue tall spoiler the other day and took it apart. I'll try and explain this the best I can, cause I just put mine back together and didn't take pictures of the whole process.


1. First thing you need to do is remove the little caps that are on both bases. You then see these two rivets. They will need to be removed before anything, I used a flathead screwdriver and bent each side of the rivet up, then used pliers on the head of the rivet and pulled em out that way. You will obviously need to replace the four rivets when you put everything back together. I used 3/16 diameter, 1/16-1/8 grip range aluminum rivets.



2. With the rivets out, you'll need something wide and flat for prying the plastic covers that go over both sides. I used a glazing prybar (like this one: ), wrapped the end in a microfber cloth to prevent damaging anything. Insert the prybar (or whatever tool you decide to use) into the seam shown in the picture. You want to pry downward, there are two plastic plugs that are holding that cover on, so you may have to move your prying tool to either side to pop em both out. You shouldn't need a lot of pressure, but don't don't be afraid to giver' if you have to.



3. With both of the base covers off, you can go ahead and remove these edge covers. They're held on by two large Philips head/10mm bolts.



4. Remove all the small Philips screws holding on the long plastic cover that directly underneath the middle of the spoiler. With all the screws removed, you want to take your prying tool, and put it in between the edge of the spoiler, and the plastic cover. The cover is held on mainly by plastic plugs, with a short strip of 3M "Dual Lock" fastener. Go along both sides of spoiler prying the cover away from the spoiler. You'll head pops as each plug comes out. Once loose, remove the cover and put it to the side, now you'll see this exposed aluminum bar



5. The aluminum bar is held on by a bunch of the same Philips head/10mm bolts that you saw earlier, along with three 10mm nuts. Go ahead and remove all those, after that you'll be able to remove the bar from the ABS plastic portion of the spoiler.

That's pretty much it, take your time prying the plastic covers off. I STRONGLY suggest using something similar to the prybar that I used, if possible. A flathead screwdriver would probably end up damaging things, nor is it wide enough to get the job done.

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask

 

Thank you. Might be a while before I can try this, my safe for this job pry tools are on loan. When I was originally trying to get mine apart, I thought the rivets had to come out, thanks for verifying.

 

No problem, and good luck!

 

This is exactly what I've been looking for. Thanks for snapping those pics!

 

No problem

 

Since TiC was such a nice guy to post this, I thought I would add to this helpful thread. I just tore down a big wing to paint (funny enough, I was painting it Octane Blue). Anyways, I thought I'd post some pictures of the inside of the wing so you can all be aware of where the snap features are located so you aren't just guessing and prying everywhere.

I circled the features that can be loosened from the leading edge of the wing (toward the front of the car) in blue and those loosened from the trailing edge (toward the rear) in red. Note that the trailing edge of the wing has 5 strips of a velcro-like fastener that needs pulled apart as well.

I hope this helps prevent any frustration (and cracked wings) when tearing down your spoiler.

 

I will also add that you can replace the 4 rivets you'll destroy when taking the wing apart with M4 bolts (#6 bolts might work as well, they just might be a hair small). The rivets are 4mm diameter.