Spent a couple of hours taking the driver's side door back apart to redo what I should have done the right way the first time. A few weeks ago I decided to finally replace those old wore out outer door handles on my LJ. The passenger had got to where it would take both hands to open it. So I went online to the great fount of ejication, Youtube. I found what appeared to be a couple of good videos and armed with that info started with the driver's sided door.
Fortunately I had a window handle clip tool which apparently no one in Youtube land has as they were all screwing around with picks and screwdrivers. I've done it that way but I haven't tried it like that since the mid 70s. The tool makes it much quicker altough those "dammit" clips can still fly off into lower earth orbit if you're not careful. One thing I did find out quickly that replacing that outer handle can be difficult with the window glass in there, but I managed it. Those wedges want to go through where the glass is at even with it rolled all the way up.
For the passenger side, I smartened up and just took the window glass out and it was much easier and I recommend doing that way. Now on both doors I had a heck of a time getting the door panels back on. That forward top edge of the panel just didn't want to go in there. More on that in a bit.
I drove it around a bit for the past few days and yesterday I noticed that the driver's side handle had came loose and when I pulled on it could get about a quarter inch of the bottom edge of it pulled out. So this morning I took it back apart to reset the wedges that hold it place. This time I pulled the window glass out so I could use a hammer and screwdriver to tap the wedges in tight to hold them in. When you pull the glass, the rubber seal in the window frame has to come out as well as the black plastic piece in the front edge of the window frame which is held in place with two screws on the outer edge of the frame parially covered by the rubber door seal.
I figured out that when you're putting it all back togther those screws that are partially hidden by the door seal, just start them and leave them loose for a bit. When you're putting the door panel back on, pull that black triangular piece up a bit. It'll give around an inch more clearance for door panel. Once you've got the panel back in place, shove the triangular piece back down and tighten the screws. Instead of fighting the door panel for an hour or so, I had it back in a couple of minutes.
. Seems odd to limit surface friction to this level, but note the drum. A small elevation change between the parallel friction surfaces makes drum removal more entertaining…
