body mouldings: questions and concerns
 

As many of you 87 88 and 89 owners probably know the body mouldings on our supras warp, rust, cause rust and are generally hard to keep looking like new . This is most definately due to their metal backing.


I've definately got some sick rust happening because of my mouldings and am considering filling them all in and putting on some sort of imitation moulding, or even scratching them altogether. Though, I've heard that in 90/91 they switched to an all plastic construction for the body mouldings. Can anyone confirm that ?

So my questions are as follow;
1. Do the 'new' plastic mouldings fit on 87/88/89s?
2. Are there any alternatives to paying outrageous prices for a set of used mouldings ?
3. How do you care for your mouldings ?

Info much appreciated.

The side mouldings are there to protect from bumps and dings. They're level with other doors, so they do protect quite a bit.
86.5-88 had the steel-backed mouldings.
89-92 had the plastic mouldings.

yes, 89+ mouldings will go right in with no modifications IIRC. There is no difference in the sheetmetal, so, there is no difference in the mouldings mounting holes.

You WILL need 89+ taillights to finish the job as 86-88 taillights will not accept the new center piece, so you'll have new mouldings all the way to the rear, but the center will not be the same.
Not a big deal to someone like myself who prefers the 89+ 3-piece taillights.
Not to mention, all you have to do to install the taillights is drill 2 small holes and that's it.

Filling in the mouldings is not recommended if you want to avoid door dings, but if you like the smoothed out look, you need to weld in strips of sheetmetal to fill the void, then finish off with a skim of bondo. If you do it right, you won't even need the bondo.

Great, do you have pics of your tail lights ?

not mine, but this is them.

http://i22.ebayimg.com/05/i/06/7e/b5/82_1.JPG
Actually those are JDM tails. They're tinted a bit darker than USDM.

i have an 87 and mine look a bit darker.. and how much are these newer ones anyways. i just need them on the doors, but would they match?

Those look pretty kickass. Anyone selling a set of 1990 mouldings and tail lights ? :)

nytrydr: I am ;)
PM me if you're serious.

since you dont want rust being in there, consider the metal in the door that the moulding screw into, it scratches the hole every time, either you seal it real good, or jus completely remove them and fill it with fiberglass then paint it, it have the cleaner look , and you can plastic hoses an the end of the dorr to still prtoect it from bumps and hitting thing when you open your door