Gutting The Doors

It seems like ages since I last posted, but in actuality it has only been a week. It was a long, busy, tiring week at work though and to be honest by the time I got home I did not feel like doing anything other than relaxing.

Today I started the task of removing everything from the driver side door. I started with this door because I knew it was not the door I was going to end up using. That way I could experiment with just how to remove everything.

The first thing I wanted to remove was the window triangle, but I needed to get the weather strip corner out of my way so I removed the two screws that fasten it to the door. There are two more screws on the other side which I removed as well. 

With the weather strip corner pulled back I had a clear view of how the triangle mounted to the door. There are two bolts that hold it on the top. 

There are also three more bolts further down on the door that hold this in place. The triangle is actually bolted to the front window channel guide. I decided to remove the bolt connecting these two pieces to make it easier to remove them from the door.

Here is the window triangle and the front window channel guide.

I also removed the rest of the weather strip from the door. It is held in place by about 20 nylon push pins. These pins are very similar to the ones used to hold on the door panel, albeit a little smaller.

It is a lot easier to see the extent of the rust damage to the bottom lip of the door now that the weather strip is off.

Up to this point I have been following the factory service manual for the removal of all door components. The next step said to make sure the window was in the half way up position. Since I no longer have power to the car or wiring for that matter, I had to find another way to get the window down. I used one of the spare batteries I intend to use for KITT's battery pack to apply power to the window motor's contacts. I was able to lower the window about half way down.

The manual instructs you to punch out the glass to sash channel attaching rivets. I was really not loving this idea. I mean I know that I will be replacing the glass anyway, but I would rather have a chance to see exactly how this was attached to the glass. I decided to research if there was any other way to remove the window. I read online that there is a way to remove the glass and sash channel as one piece. I decided to attempt this method.

The first step was to remove the left window bracket. This contains one of the two window stops in the door. There are three bolts on the top and one at the bottom. The center bolt of the top three secures the window stop.

The second step was to remove the bracket on the right side. This also contains a window stop although this one does not need to be removed from the bracket to get it off the door. There are two bolts on this bracket that need to be removed, one at the top and one at the bottom.

Here are the two brackets. They are laying here just the way they were mounted on the door.

The third bracket to remove is in the center of the door and is secured by two bolts. This bracket is all that is still keeping the window steady. When you remove this bracket the window will be very wobbly but it will not fall.

Next I removed the two window guides at the top of the door.

Here is the center bracket and window guides.

With all of the brackets removed I was able to manipulate the window enough to get the back side off of the track and the front of the window to lower into the door. I did have to lower the regulator arms with the window motor as I did earlier, but with a little patience I was able to get the regulators to a point where I could slide them out of the front of the track and free the glass. I lowered the glass down into the door.

With the window out of the way I could get to the two bolts that hold the mirror to the door. I removed these nuts and took off the mirror.

Here is the mirror and the manual adjustment cable. This all pulled through the door as one piece.

The window sweep was next to be removed. This is held on by several screws along the inside lip. You can see two of the screws in this picture.

Here is the window sweep. This will be replaced with a new sweep when the door is reassembled.

Sara got back from shopping just in time to help me with removing the glass. It was completely free inside the door but was a bit of a challenge to get out of the top of the door. The track is just a little too wide to fit through the top of the door, but if you tip the glass toward the inside of the car you can jimmy it out without damage to the door or glass.

Driver side glass removed complete with track.

My beautiful wife with impeccable timing as always! Thanks Honey!