GM Muscle

iTrader: (9)

Decided to rip out the door bars today. Much easier than expected. If you don't want to cut the bar, drill the door, or take the door off, just pop the front wheel and inner wheel well off and the door bar will slide right out the gromet and into the wheel well with the door shut. I didn't even have to pull the wires out and my inner fenders are already gone so that made things even easier. Also, instead of grinding down a 10mm socket and fighting with one of the front bolts, you can take a dremel and cut a 1/3 of that bracket out in 2 minutes. I just threw everything on my digital scale and between the door bars, part of the front brackets, rear brackets, sound deadening, and plastic liner, it came out to 22.5lbs for both doors. Well worth the little bit of effort IMO.

Time to tear into the dash tommorow.

theblur98ss

iTrader: (71)

Wow that's what I like to hear. I've heard so many horror stories about taking them out being a pain. How long start to finish would you say?

xaon

iTrader: (12)

I pulled a set of them out of one car today in about an hour, you've just got to figure your own way to get ahold of the bolts and get them loosened up... they're in there TIGHT.

I'll probably be doing two more cars this next week.

GM Muscle

iTrader: (9)

When you first take the panel off and look you kind of say to yourself "how the **** and I'm going to do this", I almost didn't do them. But after poking around and looking for 30 minutes I had it figured out and prorbably spent less than an hour per door. I still havn't put the panels back on yet, I might cut out the rest of the front bracket out and trim all the extra fiberglass at some point. The car should be in the 2900lbs range by the end of the month.

12secondv6

Can ya get some pic's please?

Thanks!

SlickVert

iTrader: (5)

What are you refering to when you said the "plastic liner"?
Do mean the front wheel well plastic liner?
That is some good weight reductions.

GM Muscle

iTrader: (9)

No, there is a plastic vapor barrier glued to the door. It's the same poly stuff they use in houses (like 8mil), it weighs practically nothing but I threw it on the scale anyway. The wheel well liners and under car plastic was about 8-10lbs total, it was hard to get an accurate read on the scale because they are kinda big. Not worth pulling those if your car sees rain or dirt roads.

What would you like pics of? I did put the panels back on today, decided not to trim all the extra fiberglass.

SlickVert

iTrader: (5)

GM Muscle
Thanks, for the detail info.
I'll remove the door bars this week.

Droptopws6

iTrader: (13)

Ok, Im a retard you have to take the inner door panel off to see the door bars correct? Everytime in my life I have removed a door panel it has never gone back on properly did a bunch of plastic clips break? Or is it basically screw on?

GM Muscle

iTrader: (9)

You do need to be carefull taking the panels off. The clips won't break but you can damage the fiberglass they push into. First, take out the screws around the door handle (inside) and the trim peice by the mirror, then roll down the window, on the top of the door stick your fingers down in where the window goes and pull the panel up and tward the inside of the car at the same time. The top of the panel will be seperated from the channel and now you just pull the door up and out to seperate the rest but you can't completly remove it yet, you need to take a small flat head screw driver and seperate the door lock handle from it's push/pull rod, if you have power windows you'll need to roll them back up before un plugging the buttons. Once all this is done all you need to do is twist the front of the panel to the ground and pop the whole thing off over the door handle.

If you decide to remove the rear plate you will need some washers to re attach the latch assembly to the door, alot of people don't do this but I find that my doors open/close better and fit more flush without them. There is the chance teh fiberglass can get stress cracks over time if you slam your doors alot. If your real ambitious you can just trim the plate and reuse it.