Removing door panels on a 72 CS

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Old Mar 4, 2015 | 05:33 PM
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Removing door panels on a 72 CS

I want to adjust window and fiddle with door handle. What type of plastic fasteners can I expect to find? They the while one that break no matter what you do and I should have a new supply ready to put back together. Or, are they other type you can reuse if your careful enough taking them off?


Thanks
Old Mar 4, 2015 | 05:42 PM
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Remove screws at bottom of carpet & the three in arm rest. Unscrew lock ****. There are reusable metal clips, 3 per side I think. They sell a fork type tool for this or you can use a small flat pry bar & carefully pop them straight out. If you have the pull strap(Supreme) you will need to remove the chrome rectangle escutcheons & unscrew the strap from the door also. Those escutcheons are easy to break & hard to remove with out scratching the wood grain or breaking the attaching tabs. Someone else may chime in with a good way to get those off. Once the door panel is loose & just attached at the top, gently pull upward on it while lightly wacking outward on the front vertical part & rear vertical part if necessary.

Last edited by oldspackrat; Mar 4, 2015 at 05:45 PM.
Old Mar 4, 2015 | 06:15 PM
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Yeah, those plastic fasteners hadn't been dreamed of yet when they made these.

Instead they used little metal cross-spring fasteners that break when you remove them.

The metal fasteners are each made of a single piece of about 14ga spring wire, all bent up like a pretzel, with the end that's attached to the door panel being about ¾" square, if I remember, so you want to get your 2-pronged tool (prybar end, claw hammer, fancy plastic trim tool, pointy rock...)under both sides of this square, so that you pull the clip out of the hole in the door, instead of pulling the clip out of the soft door panel (which is kind of a non-fixable event).

Grease 'em when you reinstall.

- Eric

edit:

I searched - looks like they're stamped steel instead of wire (why do I remember wire?).
Anyway, here's a picture of what they should look like, and a picture of what I remember:



Old Mar 5, 2015 | 09:48 AM
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And there's the spring clip that holds the window crank on (assuming no power windows). They make a cheap tool to pop it off or you can use a rag slipped between the crank and door panel. Keep an eye on it since they can pop off and get lost easily.
Old Mar 6, 2015 | 02:35 AM
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And also the door lock **** to unscrew.
Old Mar 31, 2015 | 05:11 PM
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or you can use a rag slipped between the crank and door panel

I'm stuck on the door crank. How do you di the rag method. Slide it through there and hope it catches edge of clip and pulls it off?
Old Mar 31, 2015 | 05:40 PM
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My car has plastic fasteners and was built in April of 72. If you need plastic fasteners they are available from AMK.
Old Mar 31, 2015 | 06:00 PM
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I have the proper tool now (cheap like borscht) but before that I got a heavy duty paper clip, bent the last 1/8" to a 90 degree angle, slid it under the handle until I could feel it catch the clip, then a quick flick popped it off.

Youtube is a great source for this sort of thing...the video I watched used two clips, I managed with a single clip.

Here's the rag trick:
Old Mar 31, 2015 | 07:53 PM
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I broke down and bought the tool. after 20 min with no luck I bent it a bit and got it to work. Now to figure how to find the part to fix my problem.
Old Mar 31, 2015 | 07:56 PM
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Originally Posted by davoaz
I broke down and bought the tool. after 20 min with no luck I bent it a bit and got it to work. Now to figure how to find the part to fix my problem.
If you don't know the name of the part, post a photo of it here. Bound to be plenty of them to be had.
Old Mar 31, 2015 | 08:07 PM
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I have another post going about that one. https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...good-yank.html


My interior door handle is not opening the door. The rod clip is loose. If I hold it in place it works. Not sure if I can bend it to make it stay in place and it doesn't look like the kind of part you can get from these after market parts suppliers.
Old Apr 1, 2015 | 03:17 AM
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The wire clip is a '50's thing.
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