The doors on most cars are not all that different from the door on your house. There are a few tricks to getting it to open and close correctly. You need to know a little about how to install hinges and in some case electrical wiring. Car doors get damaged or rusty and sometimes need to be replaced. With the cost of auto body work, having a clue about how to replace that door can save you hundreds. You can also save by locating the replacement door yourself.
Without going into why you want or need to replace the door on your vehicle, the first step is to locate the replacement door. You can call an auto dealer or body shop and order a new door. However, often the better solution is to canvas salvage yards until you find a door that is a near match for the one you need to replace. It is not uncommon to find a door with the same configuration on power equipment or other options for the particular door. This can save you loads of reworking the door before you install it. Do not worry too much about color unless you are just really lucky to find one that is an exact match. You will probably have to paint it to match your car. The interior covering whether synthetic material or cloth can be swapped easily.
If the door has a hand-operated window, make sure that it moves up and down smoothly. With a used door, you want to make sure that there is very little or no rust because this will require some body work before you can install it or immediately afterward. If your car is old enough, it might not be possible to find a near-perfect door.
With replacement door in-hand, you are ready to start the swapping process. If your car has power windows and/or door locks, you will need to disconnect these before removing the door. If you do not do this, you will have to be extremely careful once the door is removed so that you do not mess up the wiring. To remove the power equipment, you will need to either pop out the apparatus with the various switches and remove the interior of the door. Once the interior door covering is removed, you will see several ports into the door. If the new door has the electronics already installed, all you will need to do is to unplug these devices. If you will have to do a conversion, unplug them for now and leave them in place. Feed the electrical wiring through the port on the edge of the door by the hinges.
Use a wrench and unbolt the door from the car body. This job is much easier if you have someone who can hold up on the door while you loosen the hinges. Most hinges have three or four bolts, and most doors have two hinges. Keep track of these bolts. They should all be alike, but if there are differences, mark where each bolt should be returned when putting the new door in place. Once the bolts are all out, remove the door and set it carefully to the side.
If you have to convert the door from manual to power, remove the lining from the new door. Now, pay close attention to how the motors and clips are attached inside the old door as you remove them. Unless you are a professional at this, you will want to remove and reinstall each part one at a time so that you do not get confused or forget exactly how some piece went into the door. Some of these operations work best if you are a contortionist, but most people can get this job accomplished. When all of the electrical parts have been put tightly into place, you are ready to install the door. If both doors are power, go ahead and remove the door lining before installing the door. This will need to be done to let you complete the wiring. It is easier to do with the door off of the car.
Set the new door in place and begin to replace the bolts into hinges. Do not tighten the bolts snug until all of them have been put into place. Tighten up the bolts now until they are just snug. Try shutting the door. If everything is right with the world, you will have no trouble getting the door to shut and latch. You may have to play with adjusting the bolts a few times to get it how you need it. It is not really very hard to do.
Once the door will shut cleanly, if you have a manual door, you are finished except for maybe cleaning up any dirt or finger prints on the door and glass. If it is a power door, you will need to thread the wiring back through the edge of the door. Ease the harness over to the plugs on the various switches and devices. Once the equipment has been plugged in, test them to make sure that everything works. If not, check all of your connections and make sure that you have all of the parts in the right places. After you have checked everything, test it again. If you did not have to convert the door, you may have to replace the parts on the replacement door with the parts from your old door. If you did a replacement, you may need to go have someone check your electrical work for the problem.
If the door opens and shuts easily and everything works as it should, you are done with this part of the change over. If you need to paint the door to match your car, it is best to do that before the installation, but it can be done now, also. If you are fortunate enough that your replacement door and your car match in color, you are ready to go.
