fiestaturbo.com

[The Baby Face Assassin]

Credit Ross a.k.a. cha1n (From Saxo Sports Club)

Ok. Firstly you need to remove the interior door panels. To do this you need remove the triangular panel that the knob to control the mirror is on, this just unclips if you pull it, then you need to unscrew the screw that holds the adjustment knob to the plastic panel. (all the screws on the car are torx or star drive incase you haven't noticed so you'll need a set of those.)

Then there is a screw in the little resevoir below the door handle where you probably store loose change or something ;].
Then if you pull the door panel away from you carefully, you should notice all the clips, unclipping. Then just pull it upwards sliding it past the door pin and it should come off no problem. Now put this aside, along with any screw taken out.

Next it would probably be a good idea to take off the door handle as it tends to get a bit of a beating from sanding and when welding. If possible removing the outer plastic door panel also makes life easier. (there are clips all the way along that hold it on, it is also glued on at the part where the VTR, or saxo badges are. make sure all clips are undone before prizing it out with something flat and strong like a wallpaper stripper or something similar. You can see if the clips are undone by looking on the inside of the door(peel back the door liner to expose the inside of the door)

Ok.. Now if you look on the inside of the door, you will be able to see the back of the lock there is a metal clip that keeps the lock in place, it's directly next to it on the side closest to the mirror, just grip it and wiggle it about pulling it in the direction towards the mirror, and it will slide out, then the lock will just come out, if you remove it from the outside of the car, but firstly remove the lock rod going down to it from the inside of the door.

Right.. now there's some nice holes in your doors.. now you need to cut some small square pieces of metal slightly bigger than the hole(in the haynes manual it says to draw a template of the hole with a piece of card, but you try cutting that shape out of sheet metal. If you wanna spend a few hours then go for it, i started to then decided it wasnt actually worth it..)

Ok you got your piece of metal? make sure its clean metal, then get a grinder and grind around the whole where the lock was, take it down to metal, about an inch all around so there is something to weld to. Now just hold the plate in place from the inside of the door(or get a friend to) and tack around it with the welder make sure it's on there good and strong. Now get the good old grinder back out and grind it down flat.

Right almost there.. Now it's sanding time, you need some 80 grit sand paper, and a DA, if you haven't got a sanding machines, it's ok you can do it by hand, although i know what i'd rather use.. just do a largish area around the now de-locked door. I went from the hole to the edge of the door in the direction towards the back of the car, and then about the same ammount all around, apart from where the handle recess is in the way.. Now you're not looking to necessarily take it back to metal, just 'feather' it make it all flat and nice, and blend into the paint.

Now it's time for filler just filler over all the area thats down to bare metal, and rub it down flush to the door/paintwork keep the paper flat(better to use a sanding block) and do it in a horrizontal direction. To check it's flat feel from the untouched part of the door, and move it onto your de-locked area, if you feel it's raised at all keep sanding, pay attention to detail at this stage.. It'll feel like your taking away most of the filler but thats normal, also if you over do it you can always add more.. i think you finish up on a higher grit paper like 360 ready for priming, and then paint, it may be a higher grit paper, but i'm unsure as the bodyshop did this part for me, probably best to let a bodyshop do the spraying too.. and that's it really..

Hope this helps, however much work this sounds like, it really isn't much took my about 30 minutes(alot of it waiting for filler to dry) it's a crime places charge so much to do it..


***Please Remember to Move***

[phatboy]

would be good if somebody re-wrote that to apply more to a fez, as a lot of that is different for dismantelling a fez door

the smoothing bit is quite good though!

[Phil Si]

Moved as requested