Technical bulletin R079/08A relates to a roof rattle caused by the gradual perishing of the rubber seal around the windscreen, and can be addressed by tightening the roof latch.
I’ve given this a try but am stuck removing the snap ring holding the pin in place. The bulletin recommends the use of snap ring pliers, but I don’t have a set and don’t know what sort I need.
Is a set absolutely required for this fix and, if so, which sort should I get? If not, what can I use instead? I managed to get the flat end of a screwdriver under the ring but couldn’t move it enough to remove it and didn’t want to apply so much force that it broke.
A set of circlip pliers is cheap and well worth having. My very old Eclipse set is now extremely well worn and some of the tips have been reground several times. It looks a little bit like these Rolson pliers which are so cheap they can be used once and thrown away. The Rolson tips can be used for inner or outer circlips just by choosing different mounting lugs on the handles.
Yes you need circlip pliers to do the job.
I got a cheap set of 4 from Screwfix and they were next to useless. The prongs were too big to fit into the circlip. Removal was pretty straightforward. Refitting the circlip was a right PITA!
It was worth it though, no more rattling!
The tips of circlip pliers are often the wrong size!
My old ones were ground down to fit several times because of wrong size or bending, and I also occasionally tried re-tempering them with mixed success.
I find that most circlip pliers are too big for that circlip so end up using a small flat blade screwdriver to spread the circlip slightly for removal then squeeze it tight again with pliers afterwards.
Belated thanks to all for the comments on this. I was able to perform the fix as recommended in the bulletin, and the circlip pliers were exactly what was needed - a tight squeeze, but after a few minutes I got it done.
