Removing the windows

A few weeks ago I started taking apart the doors I bought last fall as replacements for the original ones. The original ones have bad rust on the bottom and the passenger's door has a couple of rust-through spots on the skin. Instead of spending money to have these repaired, then prepared and painted, I am going with the "new" ones.

First thing I did was to remove the interior door covering and mirrors from the "new" doors. Since the doors were electric window/door lock I also had to remove the electric hardware. It wasn't that hard, except drilling out one or two of the rivets holding the equipment in. I choose to do this because the stock doors are manual windows and the wiring harness isn't in the dash. Rather than having a large project to find a harness, wire it in, check it etc. I want to convert the new doors to manual. Plus the stock door skins are in great shape, so I didn't want to find replacements.

Since the stock windows are factory tinted, I need to remove the windows in the new door, which aren't. I asked around on several websites for Fox Chassis cars and didn't find much information about how to do this without drilling out the rivets in the window.

So, here is what I did.

First step. Get a pair of good thick work gloves. While none of this is really hard or requires a lot of strength there are tons of sharp edges to cut you hands on.

Next, remove the channel that holds the front of the window in the door. In this picture these are the two nuts top and bottom you see.Once unbolted, it easily comes out of the door.





Next remove the pole that is what the window glides up and down on. There are two nuts here, one at the top and the other at the bottom of the door, which you can't see.

Remove the exterior due wipes. (First remove the mirrors). Gently pry up on the metal piece at the bottom of where the mirror used to be. There are no screws or nuts for this. This is one place where I had one glove on and gently pulled up with the other hand. Once it starts to pull up, it comes out pretty quickly.



Next remove the upper exterior channel. Behind the dew wipe where the mirror was, is a small screw. Remove it and again gently pull the metal, this time towards where the dew wipe used to be. If you are lucky the weatherstripping will come with it. For one of my doors the weatherstripping shattered into a million pieces. Finally reach inside the door and remove any remaining weatherstripping.




Now for part that I can't help with. Since I removed the electric mechanisms, the regulator, which is what raises and lowers the window was already removed. I can't tell you how to remove it from the bottom of the window. Maybe someone else here can?

Here is what the regulator and window assembly looks like in the door:




Now push the window against the front of the door and out of the way. Pull the top of the window glide up until it won't go any more (pushing the bolt out of the backside of the door. Now gently twist it, so the bolt is parallel to the window. Gently pull the two sheet metal parts of the door apart, less than 1/4" and pull the glide out.


Here is what the gap looks like:


Now the window can be raised. It isn't easy to get it out of the window, since going straight up, like rolling it up, hits the door frame and it won't fit. I rotated the window about 90 degrees and took it out "back" or "left" side first, the assembly at the bottom easily cleared the slight increase in the gap between the two sheet metal parts.


With the door apart I can have it worked on (small dents) and repainted. Once that's done I can reassemble it.

I have a while before I need to rebuild the window, but everything you need is available from Fox Restoration at www.foxresto.com