Hobie

Just bought a new plastic trim piece for my passenger door. It’s the piece that runs along the top of the door panel, black plastic with a window wiper installed.

How do I put this on? Looks like it has clips on the top and pins that go through the door panel and the bottom. Do I remove the entire door panel to replace it? I wan to be careful not to damage good parts. I’ve never taken these panels off before.

Thanks for the help!

Jza

Yes, you remove the whole inner door panel to replace it. They're joined together and come off as a unit. Once you have it off, you'll see what to do.

To remove the door panel, you start by removing the armrest. It's held on by three T-20 Torx screws. Then you have to remove the door handle trim by removing the smaller Torx screws around the perimeter of the plastic door handle trim. Be careful because some of them are fake, actually a molded part of the plastic trim. Just look at them carefully before you start twisting them out. Then you pull the panel out of the door; they're held in with plastic hardware. You can use a screwdriver or similar to pry them out of the hole, but there's a special tool that's the best way to do it without damaging the panel or the hardware. Once everything is clear, you pull the whole door panel up and out to seperate it from the door.

Hobie

Than you, doesn't seem too hard.

grumpygreaseape

then when the door panel is off-THATS-when the fun starts. the top trim strip is held to the flimsy cardboard that is the door panel by some inverted(for lack of a better term) sheet metal nuts. these need to be unscrewed from the little plastic **** that you see sticking out of the new one. i rigged up a little tool to remove them, because if you hack at them too much the cardboard that is the panel will start to break away at the holes that the **** fit thru. what i did was welded 2 thick nuts together-the hex size is iether 8 mm or 5/16 inch. the nuts i used were from an old mopar ign.coil so when they are stacked and welded the things are about 3/8 thick then i drilled out the threaded holes enough to fit over the **** and tack welded an old allen wrench to that and yowza-instant special tool that wont damage the panel. kinda hard to explain but when you see the inverted nuts on the backside of the panel.