Went to a local junk yard to find only 1 4th gen f-body, happens to be a 93-97 (specifically 97) in black (same as my car) with both driver and passenger doors, fully manual, still intact. I'm picking them up Friday for $50 a piece and just was wondering if the swap is as simple as the 4 bolts on each side and aligning them?

My GM shop manual says a door spring compressor is required, but would that only be if you were removing the hinge from the door? I was thinking if I can just unbolt the doors, hinge and all, they will come right off. The fenders are off of the donor car so that might make it easier, but will I need to remove the front fenders on my car?

Any tips on alignment? I read on here someone said to remove the from the rear quarter and adjust the door where you want, then place the latch where it needs to be. Any help is appreciated, thanks!

edit: Could a mod please change the title from "Sway" to "Swap" Also, I've been fighting my power windows since day 1, and I'm sick of them. Finding manual windows is a big plus for me if you were wondering why I am doing the swap.

 

Actually its not that bad to swap your regulators to manual. At least then if your paint is pretty good, it will still match. You can take a panel from a car that was painted same color as yours right after it was done and they wont match exactly now. If your not worried about that, then the swap isnt bad. For being SMC, these doors are heavy, so grab a buddy. My V6 car I just parked, is a power optioned car that someone had put a manual door on the passenger side for some reason. I swapped the regulator from my parts car, fairly easily, just grab a short 4x4 block of wood to rest the window on when you take things loose. A friend would be good help here also, but again, no door alignment issues, paint would be the same.

If your going to just swap the door for sure, its not all that hard either, just a little more time consuming to get it lined up if your not well experienced in body panel alignment. It can be done with the fender on, just remove the inner plastic wheel house liner. Plus it'll be easier to line the door with the quarter and the front fender(if the fender is aligned right) than the door and the fender. Loosen your stricker for the latch a little then snug it a touch where you can push/pull on the door and move it. You'll figure out how tight you need it quickly to move it and get it to stay put. Get it close, then snug it pretty good, then align your hinges. get them tight then go back and make final adjustments on your striker. There may be a better/different way to do it, but thats the way I do my cars, seems to be the easiest if you dont have help or someone that doesnt know any more about it then you do. I usually do mine by myself.

If you do decide to swap regulators, I can guide you through that as well. You can either swap your door panels, or make a hole for the crank and use the block offs for your switch plate from the other doors. If you havnt already, do a search for shoeboxs site and look at the pages for the window motors, regulators, and window adjustments. Will show you some of what you'll be getting into. Its not as hard as it looks. The holes are different in your door for power or manual regulator, but both sets of holes are there and marked. You would need to drill out the rivits on the regulators and either re-rivit or bolt the new regulators back in. I bolted mine and had no problems before I parked the car.

Also, you can keep your power locks easily, it is easier to unplug everything inside the door and guide it out through the boot before you remove the door(if you do go that route) and then guide it back into the new door. Also wouldnt be hard to swap latch assemblies if you swap the doors and they dont have power locks, if you wanted to keep them. Lots of options.

 

Thanks a lot, that's exactly the information I was looking for. On my power windows/locks door now the window is way out of whack. It has been too cold to dig into it this winter but spring is just a few weeks away. I replaced the window motor when I bought the car, drilled out the rivets and bolted it back in but I am pretty sure I drilled an extra rivit or something that wasn't necessary and later on over some rough roads (I love Illinois) I heard a large thud and the window was completely screwed up, I can basically lift it out or move it in any direction within the door.

I'm not sure whether the new door has power locks or not, the inside handle part was removed, as well as the mirror. It does have the grommet but I didn't check to see if there were any wires. I would be very please just swapping doors to have the manual windows, and if possible like you said to swap my power locks to the new doors too. Mirrors I could care less, power or manual. Mine is power and there is no mirror on the new door so I guess it will have to be power. I bid on some blank plates on eBay for no power anything (1LE panels?) so I'm probably just going to stick with manual locks and mirrors as well. I could always put a power lock button somewhere else in the car, or do it manually, not a big deal to me.

I am sure the paint will not match, but it looked decent. My car is a '93, donor car is a '97, both black so hopefully it will be alright until I can get the entire car painted a couple years down the road. And was I correct that it is just the two bolts on the top hinge and two on the bottom hinge? I do not need a spring compressor? Only reason I can see needing that is if I were wanting to remove the hinge from the door, which I'm not. Thanks for all your help!

 

Update:

I got the driver's side door off and new one on today. Wasn't too bad, exect I will need to take the panel back off to do some fine-tuning on alignment. Thought I had it dead on until hanging the inner panel and everything, still just a hair off.

Any advice on how to get the outer weatherstripping to sit flush with the door??? I cannot get it to set properly for the life of me. That was my only hang-up today. passenger door will go on a week from today, I won't have time till then. The paint looks like it will match up very well, I didn't think black would be too hard to differentiate.

Anyone have a driver and passenger *manual* mirror preferably black for sale?

 

Can't answer your questions.... BUT.. You are doing what I wish I could do. I tried to order my car with manual doors but not an option for SSs in '02. If I knew back then I'd be changing window motors every few months, I would have ordered a Z-28 instead of an SS, since they could be ordered with manual doors.

 

I personally wouldn't want to alter the body too much on on '02 SS, but if you are willing to source out a couple of doors it isn't that hard of a swap. You could even have a body shop do the work and paint the doors to match your car. I was lucky enough to find a black set of doors that matches very well.

 

old thread but i just had my door hinges changed at a body shop and they apparently aligned the door with the window down and when i rolled it up there was a gap large enough at the a piller to slide a dollar bill through. i left the car there and i think they just need to pull the top of the door in some. the door itself was aligned great so they were really confused as to why the window wasn't lined up. i know it was aligned good when i took them the car to have the hinges done.

 

Just out of curiosity, why were they changed if the doors were still aligned good? There are limit screws and adjustments to the window itself if you need to do that. Check it out on shbox.com.