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Taking doors off?


Wacky_Pathy
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Hi all, I've read all of the threads about taking the doors off but they all lead into a safari door discussion and personally, I don't like them. I just need to know, what all is the process of taking the doors off? Like the electrical, hinges and pins, all the good stuff. Does anyone have experience with this enough to tell me what to do?

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It was 24° F here today. I like my doors where they are!

It's been a while since I pulled the door off my '95 to fix the buggered hinges but I remember the only tricky bit was the electrical plug. Pretty sure I had to remove the driver's kick panel (remove the long trim strip along the bottom of the door opening first) to get in there, then lay on my back in the footwell and bend my fingers in unnatural ways to fish the SOB out of there. Not fun, but as I remember, it was much easier than fishing it back through to reconnect it afterwards.

Once the electrical connector is disconnected, tap out the roll pin holding the door stay to the A pillar (should just tap up and out). The two door hinge plates have two bolts each holding them to the pillar. Of course, Nissan went and put a fender over those bolts, so you'll have to pull that, too, unless you've got some special wrench that works around corners. The fender's got a clip holding the flare to the bumper valance (not sure if the older style bumpers have this), some plastic push pins holding the inner plastic to the fender wall, and a bunch of 10mm bolts. Two of them are sort of tucked behind the bumper, but IIRC I was able to remove them with a ratcheting wrench and get the fender off without pulling the bumper. I seem to remember you don't have to pull the wiper cowl, but don't quote me on that. (Oh, yeah, and then you've got the antenna to detach from the passenger's fender before it'll come off.) Then you can unbolt the door hinges. If the door's never been off before, you may have to pull a little to get the hinges out of the seam sealer. Don't try to lift the door off by the handle! I did that on mine and shattered that cheap plastic SOB. Roll the window down and lift from the window opening, or put a ratchet strap through there up to a rafter, or something along those lines.

I only took the driver's front off. I imagine the rears will be the same story, except of course easier access to the bolts, and you'll probably have to pull the lower B pillar trim to get to those plugs. Oh, yeah, and if you've got the courtesy lights in the front footwells, those will stay on until you remove the little push switches that the doors are supposed to hit when they're closed.

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You sir, are a legend. You answered all of my follow up questions too! I think I'll just pull the pins and disconnect the wiring and keep it disconnected. Sounds like a lot of trouble. I may do a quick release strap and figure a way to hook em up. Thank you so much brotha!

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I would note that you do have to take the fender windshield cowl off to get to the last upper fender bolt ( for changing the fender) but if you get the rest of the bolts off them you should be able to swing the fender up and get a shoulder under there to unbolt the door hinges... and yes... it is not fun to fish the damn electrical back through the body but that's easier with a small wire and lots of electrical tape. ( I used a bicycle cable end because I had one handy. I just knotted one end and passed that behind the plug and tape the wires together to hold it in place-ish then kept taping the rest of the plug until it was sort of tapered with most of the wire poking out.... stuff that through the body and pull the tape off.)

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I would note that you do have to take the fender windshield cowl off to get to the last upper fender bolt ( for changing the fender)

 

Figures--it's been long enough since I had a fender off that I couldn't remember for sure. Thanks for catching that!

 

 

I just get me a rubber mallet and mine came right out surprisingly.

 

You lucky bugger! Mine gave me all kinds of grief.

 

Jimmie, I recommend a hammer and some kind of punch. A steel rod with a small dish in the end (drill a shallow hole in it) should stay on the tip of the pin better than a flat-ended one, so you're putting more force into the pin and less likely to put speed holes in the door by accident. Also, penetrating oil. The pins on mine were seized in their bushings (turning in the brackets instead, which of course wallered out and made the door sag) and they took much more persuasion to remove than they should've. Beat them one way, beat them back the other way. Apply heat (being careful not to set fire to the door seals) and quench. I even drilled a hole in the bushing tube to spray oil directly into the seized bushings. Because mine had seized and worn like that, the bushings actually weren't too bad but the pins were loose in the brackets. I put it back together, jacked up the back of the door until it lined up with the sill, and then welded the pins to the brackets where they were supposed to be. Then I lubed the holy hell out of them with sticky chainsaw oil in hopes I'd never have to do that job again.

 

Hopefully yours come out more like Wacky's and less like mine!

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What's the easiest way to drive the old pins out ?

A long skinny punch and a jack or blocks of wood to keep the door square. The harbor freight punches worked for me. Along with using a long 3/8ths socket extension.

 

You do not want the door's weight hanging on the pin. Lube the overloving piss out of them. Get some rubber hoses and cut a slit in the middle of them from one end to the other and line the door edges with it by slipping it over. This will prevent you from scratching and scraping up the paint while you man handle the door. An extra set of hands is great unless you are tall and have long arms and some strength. These doors are heavy.

 

Once you get the doors off and pull out the old brass hinge bushings, clean up the hinge holes with a dremel to make sure the new bushes can fit in. They may be wallowed out oblong.

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk

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