Terrawagen Tidy Trim Kit Install - It really ties the Van Together!

[Hodakaguy]

Let's finish out that interior trim!

Stopped in at Terrawagen and picked up one of Eric's "Tidy Trim" kits. We're running a custom interior in our 2017 sprinter and for the last several years the trim around the B-Pillars and over the sliding door has remained unfinished. I keep saying I'm going to tackle this project but never find the time since making a professional looking trim piece for these areas is a royal pain and I have way to many hobbies fighting for my time lol. Luckily for myself and everyone else Eric is now making a Tidy Trim Kit designed for just these areas! The kit says for 2019 and up but fits the older NCV3's as well. The kit is composed of ABS plastic molded pieces that fit like a glove and it's available with or without a drivers side trim ring.

Once back home I set to installing this setup ahead of the upcoming Adventure Van Expo in Hood River OR.

The kit as it comes from Terrawagen in all it's glory.

Here's the section of missing trim around my sliding door.

First up I needed to remove the Mule bag and remove the upper panels in the van.

The kit comes supplied with these barrel nuts that screw onto the existing factory door hardware, the center trim piece will attach using two of these barrel nuts. These rest of the trim pieces are compression fit.

Testing the center trim piece for fitment.

Since I utilized/retained my factory passenger plastic trim in my build I'll have to make the new trim piece tie into my existing trim. The Terrawagen kit comes with trim pieces that go all the way to the floor and most people will use the entire kit. Here I'm marking out where I will cut the upper trim piece to line up with the L-track.

And....Cut.

Test Fitting.

With the trim piece temporarily installed I could take measurements and see how much I will have to shorten the panel. With the measurements in hand I carefully peeled the existing fabric/foam back, cut the panel down to size then used some 3M90 to re-wrap the panel.

Continued Below....

 

[Hodakaguy]

Continued from above...

Here I'm cutting out a piece out of the scrap portion of the upper trim piece. This will be used to cap off the cut end and make a nicer transition from the Terrawagen trip to the OEM trim.

Covering the first piece with automotive tweed. I started by applying glue to both the fabric and the trim piece, letting them tack then mating them together. I started the glue process in the middle of the piece then applied glue in sections and worked the fabric into place.

Next pieces done

I used a soldering iron to melt through the fabric and open up the mounting holes in the middle trim piece. This seals the fabric so it won't Frey.

I cut another piece of ABS plastic off the scrap trim and used it for a stop. I glued it and the end plug into place.

Had to open up a hole to clear my L-track mounting bolt. This corner gets trapped behind the L-track.

Installing.....Fit's soooooo nice.

Continued Below......

 

[Hodakaguy]

Continued from above...

On to the drivers side. Here's what it currently looks like without the trim piece. Drives me crazy.

Pulled down the Mule bag and removed the panel. I trimmed a section of the fir strips to clear the trim piece.

Test fitting. The trim piece is just a tad to high to fit with my existing panels so I'll have to trim a bit.

With the trim piece temporarily installed I can take measurements and shorten the upper wall panel to match.

Well that's nice, the cut came out right where I mounted my Victron 712 Battery Monitor Display. I'll have to come up with a way to cover that!

Test fitting the panel, fit's great! Here I'm also trimming down the L-track and test fitting as well.

Here I'm trimming a bit off the top of the trim piece to allow the panels to fit up tight.

Test fitting....looking better!

To cover the existing hole I decided to move the 712 Display over a bit and fabricate an aluminum cover that will hide the existing hole.

Decided to round the forward edges a bit for a better look.

Painted black and installed on the panel.

Continued Below....

 

[Hodakaguy]

Continued from above.....

Trim piece covered.

And going back together.

Love the clean look!

To channel the words of the Dude......It really ties the van together!

Hodakaguy

 

[spencertron]

I don't know how this story has no replies. This looks so good and you did a fantastic job! Thanks for posting as I was looking for some pictures of the tidy trim installed.

 

[Rocksnsalt]

I don't know how this story has no replies. This looks so good and you did a fantastic job! Thanks for posting as I was looking for some pictures of the tidy trim installed.

The OP always did nice work and has posted some great detailed threads.
I’m pretty sure he moved on to other things… I think he’s into aircraft now or something.
Last seen here April 2024.

 

[carbon60]

Really excellent work, and results.

How much room behind the trim is there for some Thinsulate?

 

[coupdevill]

Continued from above.....

Trim piece covered.

And going back together.

Love the clean look!

To channel the words of the Dude......It really ties the van together!

Hodakaguy

Nice work, looks really really good! I just found this thread this morning and I’m finishing up my build (2023, VS 30 2500 AWD) and I have the full trim kit from Terra wagon, noticed that the corners at the front of the van/headliner or a super tight fit so seeing that you trim them from the top gives me some hope. I’ll look at it from that standpoint and see how it goes. I am planning on covering everything as well with marathon fabric. Again nice work thanks for sharing. It’s going to be super helpful.

coup

 

[icebreaker]

Just installed my rear door Tidy Trim (D-pillar). Looks amazing. Unfortunately cannot fully shut the rear doors which is a serious problem. The issue is the way the horizontal piece wraps around the D-pillar in the back and creates just a bit too much bulk between the pillar and the rear doors. Not sure what to do… I really don’t want to fully trim back the horizontal piece as it’ll ruin the whole aesthetic.

 

[Rocksnsalt]

Just installed my rear door Tidy Trim (D-pillar). Looks amazing. Unfortunately cannot fully shut the rear doors which is a serious problem. The issue is the way the horizontal piece wraps around the D-pillar in the back and creates just a bit too much bulk between the pillar and the rear doors. Not sure what to do… I really don’t want to fully trim back the horizontal piece as it’ll ruin the whole aesthetic.

That’s a bummer, and seems off.
Have you reached out to the mfg?

 

[icebreaker]

Just ever so slightly off: Doors appear closed but there’s a tiny gap (a few mm) right at the top center and a bit of play in the door itself (latch mechanism not fully engaged). The gap would be enough to let water in. I’m going to do a bit more troubleshooting before calling Terrawagen just to make sure the panels I installed on the interior of my doors aren’t the source of the interference. Also: ‘m pretty sure when I test-fit the raw plastic trim there was no issue but it seems unlikely that a single layer of Duramax Tweed would be the culprit so I’m second-guessing the original test-fit (maybe the doors didn’t close fully then either but I didn’t notice). Posted here in hopes of finding solutions from others with similar experiences.

 

[icebreaker]

TLDR: After a lot of troubleshooting I was able to get everything to fit by adjusting the door latching mechanism.

Detailed version (posting this here in case someone else encounters this problem):

The issue was I couldn't get the driver side rear door to close fully with the Tidy Trim installed. The vertical trim pieces were not the problem, the issue was with the horizontal trim piece. The Sprinter's d-pillar has two u-shaped hooks that the upper latches on the rear doors engage with. The horizontal Tidy Trim piece has two slots to fit over these hooks, and it has four bolt holes that allow the trim piece to be screwed into horizontal part of the d-pillar. The gap between the tops of the rear doors and the center of the d-pillar is very small, and once the trim piece was in place, that gap is nearly non-existent. On my van, the driver side door was striking up against the rear of the trim piece near where the u-shaped hooks are, preventing the door from fully closing. The way the mechanism works is that the door initially latches onto the hook, and then pushing it about ~2-3mm further causes the mechanism to engage further, pulling the door tightly shut. You don't notice this when you close the doors normally - it seems like the latching is a single step but there are actually two steps in the operation. Because of the interference, the driver side door could only accomplish that initial latching, and no amount of force or slamming of the door could eke out that remaining 2-3mm of travel needed for the latch to fully engage. Curiously, the passenger side door could still fully close and latch even with the driver side door not fully latched. The end result was a tiny bit of play (movement, rattling) in the door and, equally bad, a visible gap in rubber gasket at the top of the door allowing light (and potentially rain) to come through.

No amount of pressing or banging on the Tidy Trim piece with a rubber mallet could get it to move forward (ie tighter to the d-pillar). I reached out to the business and they suggested three steps: Ovaling-out the mounting holes (so they weren't interfering with my ability to push the trim piece further forward), pushing the piece forward and THEN tightening the bolts (to hold the trim piece in a forward position), and readjusting the door itself (recommending taking it to a dealer).

After close inspection I determined the mounting holes weren't keeping the piece from moving further forward. If anything, I had to push the piece as far forward as I could just to line up the mounting holes with my rivnuts so once I got the screws in place, even without tightening, they were holding the trim piece as far forward as I could get it. Furthermore, I didn't want to mess with ovaling-out the holes because I'd be staring up at this every night I sleep in the van and if I messed up my upholstery in the process I'd never sleep easily.

So, I turned my attention to the doors themselves. I noticed that the u-shaped hooks could be repositioned by loosening two Torx bolts each. I also noticed that, normally, with the doors closed the gasket was compressed 3-4mm, and the gasket could be pulled outwards away from the van a bit to provide an even tighter fit if needed. When I saw how the latches initially engaged and then only required a TINY bit of extra travel to fully engage, I started considering moving these hooks outwards (rearwards) slightly so that the door latches could engage a little further out, thus not closing quite as tightly to the van. My concerns were whether this would still allow the doors to fully seal against the gasket, whether moving the driver side door out (the problem side) would prevent the passenger side door from closing, and that I might just f up the door action in general (necessitating a costly and annoying trip to the dealer). After getting over these initial hesitations, I decided to go for it.

Using painters tape I carefully marked the factory position of the hook so I'd have a guide for how far I was moving it, and so I could revert it back to the factory position if everything went to hell. I then loosened the Torx just slightly and took a wood block which I rested up against the hook and gently tapped the block with a hammer to bump the hook backwards to a new position. I moved it approximately 2-3mm backwards. I retightened the Torx. Lo and behold the door closed just as smoothly as before, the gasket was still sealed, and it all worked WITH the Tidy Trim piece installed! However, for some reason now the passenger side door wasn't engaging! What a headache! Moving the drivers side door out 2-3mm was just enough to stop the passenger side from doing its thing...

So once again, I removed the Tidy Trim and then repeated the process of moving the passenger side u-shaped hook backwards, but only by maybe 1-2mm (less than the driver side). Reinstalled everything, and confirmed that both doors were fully closing and there were no gaps in the gasket. Problem solved!

A few final steps: Now that the doors were closing about 2-3mm "less snugly", the gasket wasn't compressing quite as much anymore. Just to ensure that it remains water-tight, I pulled the gasket away from the van by about 1mm along the center top to create just a touch more compression there. Also, before tightening down the mounting hardware on the Tidy Trim piece, I slammed both doors shut with a small piece of 1/4" plywood resting up against the rear center of of the Tidy Trim. It was very hard to get the doors fully latched this way, but I figured that bit of plywood would force the Tidy Trim as far forward onto the d-pillar as possible. Only then did I tighten down the four bolts to hold it in place. I opened the doors, removed the plywood, and closed and opened them several times. No perceptible difference in the opening/closing action of the doors (they still fully shut with barely any force - just the inertia from their own weight), and all appears to be water tight and sealed.

 

[icebreaker]

 

[Built.Vans]

Just installed my rear door Tidy Trim (D-pillar). Looks amazing. Unfortunately cannot fully shut the rear doors which is a serious problem. The issue is the way the horizontal piece wraps around the D-pillar in the back and creates just a bit too much bulk between the pillar and the rear doors. Not sure what to do… I really don’t want to fully trim back the horizontal piece as it’ll ruin the whole aesthetic.

I noticed the same on a van I used the Tidy Trim on (first and only van I used it on) I had to modify my panels too much to make it worth while. But yeah rear doors were a pain to get to close correctly.

 

[icebreaker]

I’ve started installing the trim around the sliding door and have a pretty bad gap where the “headliner void piece” meets the piece above the sliding door. It almost seems like the headliner void piece is forcing my ceiling panel upwards and away from the end of the piece above the sliding door.

Anyone else deal with this?

It looks like the OP has a similar gap there but it is hard to tell in his photos and because everything there is the same grey tweed perhaps less obvious. I have a contrasting ceiling panel and it looks bad.

Tempted to trim the top edge of the headliner void piece so it allows the ceiling to rest lower and, hopefully, flush with the piece above the door. But there’s no going back once I do that.

Another option might be to figure out a way to mate the two pieces together with a clip or bolt of some sort to hold them in place… but I don’t have a good idea for how to do this either.

 

[icebreaker]

I was able to fix the gap through a combination of the following four steps, in decreasing order of impact on the problem:

1. I found that the forward mounting hole on the piece over the sliding door was preventing it from staying tight to the ceiling. I ovaled-out this hole (using a grinding bit in the Dremel). I could now put the bolt in place, push the trim piece upwards - thus closing the gap a bit - and then tighten the bolt to hold the trim piece in position.
2. I came up with a simple and creative way to pull the edge of my ceiling panel down slightly in that corner, thus tightening the gap by just shy of 1/4 inch.
3. I used a heat gun to reshape the end of the trim piece to better fit the headliner void piece.
4. I trimmed the very edge of the headliner void piece so that the transition between the two trim pieces was more closely matched.

These steps got the gap close up to a level I was happy with, then once wrapped in fabric the gap has become imperceptible.

 

[icebreaker]

Front corner Tidy Trim gaps... before and after.