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Subject: Front door panel removal instructions. Author: ArbysNight : member since February, 2004 : 340 posts Posted on: 2004-05-31 21:16:41

My left front door speakers didn't seem to be reliably producing midrange or treble, so I decided to take the door apart to look for pinched wires or other obvious malignities. While I didn't find anything obviously wrong with the speakers (more on that in another post) I did have the opportunity to document the door disassembly. My car is a 2000 740iS with DSP, so your door speakers my be different. Note that this procedure will not reveal the outside door handle, locking mechanism, door opening mechanism, or window. To get to these you'd have to remove a foam panel that is glued in place: not pretty.

1. Remove the clear/white plastic cover over the courtesy light on the bottom of the door. This comes off by simply grabbing one end with your fingertips.

2. Use a flathead screwdriver to pry open one of the four retaining tangs inside the lightbox. Use another screwdriver or your fingers to pull the lightbox away from the door. Continue at the remaining tangs until the box is freed from the door. Undo the electrical connector.

3. Use a flathead screwdriver to pry the seat memory button box away from the door. It's just held in with some small spring tabs and friction: it's very easy to get out. Undo the electrical connector.

4. Use a flathead screwdriver and pry out the window control box. Alternate between the front and back of the box. It's held in with small metal spring tabs like the seat memory box, but it's bigger and has a lot more friction, so you'll need to go back and forth.

5. Remove the three electrical connectors from the back of the window control box. The two smaller connectors are retained with a lever-release style connector: push the small release tab to allow the lever to rotate. Rotate the lever and the connector will eject. The larger connector is retained with a slide-lock connector. Use a flathead screwdriver to slide the lower half of the connector toward the bottom of the switch housing. This will eject the connector.

6. Use a small flathead screwdriver and pop the cover off the screw within the door handle. This takes a little work to get the right angle, but once you get it the cover will fall right out. With an ounce of patience, you'll be able to remove the cover without nicking an edge.

7. Remove the phillips head screw that was hidden under the cover. This releases the door handle assembly from the inner sheetmetal of the door.



8. Like most car doors, the inner fiber panel is retained to the sheetmetal door with pop-in connectors. These connectors are permanently attached to the door panel and pop into holes in the sheetmetal. As you can see in the picture of the removed panel above, my car has 10 of these things around the perimeter. It doesn't matter where you start: put your fingers between the panel and door and pull. The connectors will pop out of the sheetmetal: you're not hurting anything, this is how they are supposed to work. Make sure you pull as close to the actual connector as possible so you don't rip or tweak the door panel.



9. With all 10 pop connectors undone, the door panel is retained to the door by five sheetmetal hangers along the top edge. These are the black rectangular things along the window sill in the picture above. Grab the door panel by the arm rest handle and lift. The top edge of the panel will lift out of the hangers. Don't walk away with the panel just yet!!

10. Holding the panel in one hand, grab the door opener assembly and rotate it so it passes thru the opening. Don't walk away with the panel yet!!



11. Pull the panel away from the door so you can access the small circuit board next to the midbass speaker. Disconnect the two outside connectors to release the door panel. (A very blurry picture above shows the two empty connectors.) These are the two connectors for the tweeter and the midrange speakers. The door panel should now be completely separated from the car.


Reinstallation:

1. Though not 100% necessary, I found it much easier to reinstall the door panel with the window rolled down and the chrome trim piece that resides along the inside edge of the window removed. The chrome strip connects to the door using the same rectangular clips that hang the top edge of the door panel. Working from one end, pull up on the trim to dislodge it from the clips.

2. Rehang the door panel from the rectangular clips along the top edge of the door. I had a hard time getting the door panel to fall into the frontmost clip, so I did this one first and then worked backwards until they were all connected.

3. Lie on the ground under the open door so you can see the various wires hanging between the panel and door. Reattach the tweeter and midrange wires to the circuit board. I suppose you could do this before you rehang the panel, but I found that I had to wrestle the panel to get it into those clips so I waited to reconnect the speaker wires.

4. Swing the door panel away from the door and pull the door handle back thru the opening.

5. Pull the three window connectors thru the window box opening.

6. Pull the seat memory cable thru the opening. This is the shortest of the the connectors: you'll probably have to lie on the ground under the door to get it.

7. Pull the courtesy light connector thru the bottom of the door.

8. Go around the perimeter of the panel and make sure the pop connectors are lined up with their respective holes. Once you have them all correctly line up, push on the panel to reseat the connectors.

9. Reinstall the various hardware and you're done.

Arbys Night
2000 740i Sport
mreilley@hotmale.spelled.correctly.com

• Front door panel removal instructions. (pic) - ArbysNight 2004-05-31 21:16:41 (23274 views)
  • Another EXCELLENT writeup, Mickey. This is getting added to e38.org, pronto. (nt) - davidc 2004-05-31 22:56:37 (583 views)