OK so a few days ago I took my panel off for the upteenth time. This time it was my door lock on the drivers side. It had sunk into the door frame and come loose. I know alot of posts have been made on this but it has a two part reason.

1: to give noobies (myself included sorta) courage to investigate and check things out before pleading for help.

2: I need to replace my window regulator or something on it and would like some advice on how much further to go into taking things off my door.





Step one: I removed the panel, one screw in the bottom of the handle under the plastic cover, two little screws at the bottom and maybe two or three christmas tree pegs on the inside and the whole thing hangs on the top of your door kinda like a hook. You must wedge out the plastic behind the door latch too.
Take off your Power window and lock electrical harness, the big white thing that the panel is hanging from. Also a good idea to disconnect the little safety light at the bottom of the panel too. This should be easy enough with a simple phillips screw driver you should end up looking like this sorta:



Step two: Remove the 6 gold colored 10mm hex screw/bolts (shown above circled in red), screwdriver works fine here, use a ratchet if you are having trouble. Now this gives you a little room to look around. If you are working toward your lock its still hard to get up in there.

Step Three: I then removed the corner piece of the latching mechanism that runs throughout the door. The little green clips pivot to release the metal arms. The corner piece is held on by one more 10mm screw/bolt. Like this:






After this I then could fit a fat droid phone into the door frame and take a look at the two screws holding in my door lock and handle:




The far one had no bolt, it had come loose and fell into the door frame.

HINT: if your lock cylinder is loose, use the holes in the frame and your fingers to push the WHITE plastic harness its connected to onto the the inside of the handle to hold it back into place while trying to get the bolt back on.

This is what took me forever to do. its kinda of a pain. But once its on its a SLOW but steady process of tightening it back. A crescent wrench was used here to turn it tight by fractions of a turn at a time. Lock is back in place nice and snug.

I saved a mess load without having to call a locksmith or take it to a mechanic and get charged labor. Took about two hours, most of which was messing with that damned lock cylinder!

 

Now for my other question, I know the large track running in the middle houses the Regulator.... How much more latches do I need to take off or stuff to disconnect from the frame do I need to do? Also I read that the window needs to be removed or sometimes it can be taped to the top of the door? AM I kinda half way there or still a ways to go? any constructive feedback is appreciated.

(yes thats a piece of wood holding up my window in the first shot behind the brace)

 

You shouldn't have CUT the vapor barrier!

That keeps the moisture off of the fragile inner door panel. The door panel is made out of light fibrous wood.

 

yeah I think its been cut ALONG time ago. its been like that for a while. But yeah my door panel is not very good. But there is no mold or anything. I didn't cut it, although I did peel back a little bit on the side on accident the first time I took the brace off. can you replace those? with the sticky tar stuff?

 

I'm not sure if you can replace the vapor barrier. I guess the dealer would have that. Or you can make it out of thick painters plastic (disposable drop cloth).

The sticky stuff you refer to is called "mastic." That can be purchased from most automotive stores like Napa.

 

why are you removing so much just to change the regulator? there are bolts holding the regulator to the bottom of the window and to the frame of the door. remove all these and replace regulator. shouldnt be that hard.

 

Apparently his door lock cylinder was screwed up.

 

humm what a shame!