Yes, in the top of my photo is the rubber seal that rests against the windshield, the hooks are about an inch below it. What's preventing this from being a simple procedure is that it's hard to get the cowl to slide down far enough so that the hooks move free of the glass because the wiper arm posts are so high. The round cutouts are barely large enough to allow you to slide the cowl down far enough to have the hooks be completely free below the edge of the glass. This is where the rotating comes in. For lack of a better word, you have to finagle the cowl down and out, and you're battling the wiper posts as you do this. If you pry straight up you'll break the J hooks, which results in a hole in your cowl because they take part of the cowl with them when they break off. If the designers (note I didn't say engineers) made the cutouts for the wiper posts a quarter inch larger in diameter this thread would not exist because it would be a simple affair.

There probably aren't any videos for removing the pillar covers because they'll inevitably end up NSFW, these things are a PITA to get off. There are three metal clips attached the to pillar cover, you want these to come off WITH the cover. Otherwise the plastic breaks and will no longer grab the clips when you try to reinstall the cover. Here's what the naked pillar looks like, you can see where the clips go. You can also see the bottom edge of the glass that the cowl cover attaches to.



And here's the back of a driver's side cover showing the clips as well as the type of tool that's useful in getting behind the clips to pry them up off the metal frame. And by the way, there are three plastic pins in the door frame side of the cover, these MUST be removed first. You can just make out the holes in the pic below on the far left edge. You drive the centers out with a small punch, which fall into the cavity to be lost forever, and then you can remove the grommets that hold the back edge of the cover in place. These must be replaced. It's worth noting that there is at least one tread here that details reinstalling the cover with speed nuts and screws, by drilling three small holes in the cover. Not a bad idea.

 

Thanks so much for the detail! I have the trim tools, you just never know what the process is until after you've broken something.

 

Small update prepped my Disco for windshield repair, it is possible to get the windshield trim out without moving the hood.

• Remove the rubber finisher on top of the moulding
• Prop the hood up with about a 24 inch piece of 2x4 or have a helper hold the hold the hood up
• Ease the finisher down and rotate to get the hooks clear of the windshield, I started on the driverside got one on that on clear then to the passenger side which got 2 more clear then the last one on the driver side
• Now gently flex the passenger side over the wiper arm mount,then the driver's side
• Once the moulding is clear of the wiper arm stubs you can move to the PASSENGER side and ease it up and toward the passenger side of the Disco you only need to go far enough that the driver side clears the hood hinge
• Now you can open the hood VERY carefully and use the support rod with luck you may have to use a chunk of wood.
• Angle the drivers side of the moulding into the engine compart and pull it through
• It took me 20 minutes of fiddling around solo to figure it out, but it came out easy once I got it angled right

It was a warm day which helped
I will try and get assembly pictures