How do you remove the door panels off of a Pontiac grand am 1996 se?

Answer 1

I have replaced the crank arm in my 96 Grand Am SE.

1. Remove the mirror from the door, there is a snap on cover be careful and unpop it off from the 3 plastic slot snap-in holders this will reveal 3 bolts. Unbolt the nuts and carefully take the mirror off the door.

2. The mirror is still holding on by the inside remote or manual lever for the mirror. Be careful not to tug or yank on it as there is a small plastic ring grommet on the inside of the door located under the leather or what ever the interior material is. It is a 3 prong plastic inset. The best way to take this off is to get a ty-wrap around the ring and tighten this up until you can slip the chrome lever down thru the hole. If you break the plastic ring you will have to order on thru a dealer to replace it..

3.The door has several plastic retainer clips shaped like a screw with ridges along the sides the head of this clip inserts into the back of the heavy cardboard and when pushed into the metal holes of the door itself will lock it in place. Unfortunatly, evertime I have taken a door of any kind off, you will break at least 3 to 5 of these plastic fasteners. You might find these at your local car retail stores, but again, these may have to ordered from a gm dealer. So...anyway if you tug on the inside door panel you will get the idea that there are several of these holding the cardboard to the metal. Try to use a door spoon to pry these clips away from the door. sometimes I had to use a large blade screw driver, but if your careful you can do this without much trouble.

4. The inner door panel will be loose at this time. Now for the fun part...getting the door handle off. To make things much earier, go to the local car retail store and ask to buy a door handle spoon, it should run you about 6 bucks. The handle is secured with a C clip that is holding the door shaft onto the inside mechanism. With the spoon you can use the U or open part of the tool and push the spoon around the handle till you feel it "kinda" slip into the C clip and while gently pulling on the round part of the door handle, [not the handle with the knob, as it might be twice as hard to remove] gently push the tool into the clip, the clip will give way and the handle should pull off easily. Do Not try to slam the tool into the clip, you'll loose it, and have to buy another. Al it takes is a gentle but firm push and you will feel it give.

5. Oh yeh...make sure the door is in the unlock position when you do this. Things will go easier. This is just a suggestion.

6. On the door puller [the handle that you close the door with] there is two screws, use a #2 phillps driver and remove them.

7. Now remove the handle. If you look inside the , thru the removed door handle you will see the power harness for the door lock unlock switch. This is a square hole lock type setup. Use a smaller blade screw driver and gently upen on side at a a time and then the other. This might take several tries on each side of the switch. do not force or try to pry the harness pnenolic snap-on to fast or in on motion, as you will break it or bend the snap-on so that when you put it back together it will fall of the lock switch.

8. If there are power windows and seat switches use the same procedure for each of the swtiches, remember do not force and of these. You might even destroy the harness and pull the wires out of the snap-on harness, again, this is NOT what you want to do, be patient.

9. The sliding autolock now has to be removed, the automatic back and forth lock unlock mechanism. You should be able to slide to cardboard panel out and forward enough to slip it off away and free from the panel.

10. Another thing make sure the window is down when you start this procedure, I keep forgetting about the small stuff, but it makes a difference.

11. Now you have to remove the retainer rubber from the outside part of the door. I have tried to remove this rubber part and ruined everyone of them, as the retainer clips are usually rusted or will break when you try to free this away from the door. I have used plyable non-drying silicon to put it back on, [oh yeh...this is why you have to revove the mirror, as it part of this rubber assembly]. When all of this is accomplished you can grab each side of the cardboard innder panel and lift straight up and out of the window jam. It's approx a 2 to 3 inch lift to free it from the door.

12. Hope this helps. For me [alone] with no help and being 62 yrs old and tuff to move around, took my 2 hours to remove, replace the inner window crank [ which is another Horror story], and 2 or so hours to put back together if you have taken all the precautions and pre-bought all the replacement parts prehand. So if your young and full of ambition and follow instuction well [ I hope these are good enough instuctions] this job should take you are 1 to 2 hours to remove the door panels.

Good Luck