HOWTO Remove Euro sliding armrest

One of the two catches for lifting the center armrest was broken on my 2004 Euro (part 19 below). My delight at the dealer selling me a new catch for $8 was short lived when I tried to fit it. It is not obvious how to get the armrest apart.

Searching didn't help much. I only found this at HondaTech.com and this at DroveAccord.net.

As I only got mine apart by force rather than skill, I thought it worth posting up a few pictures of it before putting it back together to help anyone else. It is all too easy to damage something trying to lever things apart, and that's not the way to do it anyway.

The idea is you have to find a way to defeat two clips that stop the top part of the armrest sliding all the way forward and coming off. There's probably a tool from Honda for this, or you can try to make one. I don't have one to show you, but I imagine two long, tapered bits of plastic/metal that have to be poked in from the front of the armrest to lift the two clips over the catch that they hit against (circled below).

Once done, you have access to all the screws to get the rest of it apart.


(I have rotated some pictures hoping it's more intuitive to follow how it all lines up.)


http://i1183.photobucket.com/albums/...SEA4B3740B.png


http://i1183.photobucket.com/albums/.../ArmRest01.jpg


http://i1183.photobucket.com/albums/.../ArmRest02.jpg


http://i1183.photobucket.com/albums/.../ArmRest03.jpg


http://i1183.photobucket.com/albums/.../ArmRest04.jpg


http://i1183.photobucket.com/albums/.../ArmRest05.jpg