Interior Door Handle trim help

[jsbihn]

I am wondering if anyone knows how to take the interior trim off around the door handle.
This would be the bucket it sits in that includes the grab handle and the back plate, all on the arm rest/interior door panel

If you dont know how, maybe you might have an exploded view of the door or door handle area so I can try to investigate from there

Thanks

[LoJac963]

The interior handle doesn't sit in a bucket it's out in the open. The door panel surrounds most of it. Pretty much everything is the door panel. You can remove the one screw behind the release handle then the 2 bolts behind that to free the door panel then pop the whole thing off.

Not sure what you're needing to get at but that is apparently the process for removing the door panels.

[guruerror]

Originally Posted by LoJac963

The interior handle doesn't sit in a bucket it's out in the open. The door panel surrounds most of it. Pretty much everything is the door panel. You can remove the one screw behind the release handle then the 2 bolts behind that to free the door panel then pop the whole thing off.

Not sure what you're needing to get at but that is apparently the process for removing the door panels.

[jmudler]

I am assuming you are painting the door trim (from your other thread). You will need a way to heat the plastic tabs GM melts to assemble the door panel. I used a very small butane torch vs a heat gun. I found it easier to control where I wanted the heat focused.

To paint the buckets you will need to loosen the tabs in the picture attached in red. I heated and used needle nose pliers to pinch the blobs and mold tabs.

The handle is super simple to remove via screws to the metal plate. The blue circles illustrate where the handle screws in. This area is prone to cracked or broken mounts. I had to use metal (in yellow) (radio back strap material works great) and screw it to the bottom of the arm pad and to the handle on the other end

Then reassemble by re-melting the tabs. It is not a super easy job. Take your time. Watch your heat, you can very easily melt the the texture on the other side of the door panel. I also siliconed the crap all the other joints on the back of the door panel to quiet down the rattle/creaking sounds.

Hope this helps.

[jmudler]

On ebay (where I stole the picture above) is several additional photos of what I was attempting to illustrate for the left and right front doors.

[SMITH23H2SUT]

Originally Posted by jmudler

I am assuming you are painting the door trim (from your other thread). You will need a way to heat the plastic tabs GM melts to assemble the door panel. I used a very small butane torch vs a heat gun. I found it easier to control where I wanted the heat focused.

To paint the buckets you will need to loosen the tabs in the picture attached in red. I heated and used needle nose pliers to pinch the blobs and mold tabs.

The handle is super simple to remove via screws to the metal plate. The blue circles illustrate where the handle screws in. This area is prone to cracked or broken mounts. I had to use metal (in yellow) (radio back strap material works great) and screw it to the bottom of the arm pad and to the handle on the other end

Then reassemble by re-melting the tabs. It is not a super easy job. Take your time. Watch your heat, you can very easily melt the the texture on the other side of the door panel. I also siliconed the crap all the other joints on the back of the door panel to quiet down the rattle/creaking sounds.

Hope this helps.

[jsbihn]

actually that is exactly what i am trying to do - THANK YOU!!!

given I am also thinking, if it is hard to just remove the panels. was thinking to remove the panels from the interior door, this way i can just tape and paint and not worry about any overspray in the cabin

any instructions on how to easily remove the door panels