Side Roof rails and cover molding question.

I'm getting ready to pull my side roof rails and the cover molding. Since I am sure someone else has done this I wanted to ask a couple of questions.

For the most part I believe the whole assembly is held in place by a number of torx head bolts and my guess is they tighten down into Rivnuts in the sheet metal. Now here's the rub, I did a similar project years ago on a Tahoe
and when I went to remove the torx bolts on the drivers side the Rivnuts just ended up spinning so I had to drill them out.
Well for the passenger side I thought I would use some Blaster Penetrating spay and let them soak for a couple of days.

Well that worked great, almost. While it was then easy to remove the torx bolts the Blaster worked it way down the bold and dripped on the interior head liner which created a whole new problem.

I don't know in the 08 SUT if it has a double roof in that area. If its does it shouldn't be a problems as it won't bleed into the headliner. Suggestions or idea's? Hopefully someone else has tackled this and can advise.

As always thanks to the members!

 

What sealer did you use underneath? I need to replace the front left plastic piece.

 

My only sealing I have done was to use silicone around the rubber light grommets on the corners but I need to remove both side rails to get to all the body seams.

I also want to fill the body channel where the roof is bonded to the sides. I used AC Delco 10-2013 joint sealer but the stuff is really gooey and doesn't flow very well.



It seals well and held up good, it's just a pain in the *** to work with.

 

I haven’t taken mine off yet. My headliner is currently out so I use the pb blaster. I figured there were seals under the rail. At least where the bolts go down through. I have some of that sealer made by 3M. It never really sets up. It stays gooey.