electric vs manual window swap
 

I need a door. The users of this forum were kind enough to tell me that my 2000 SL-2 can take a door from a 2000, 2001 or 2002. I found a good clean door locally but it is electric windows. I am GUESSING that by this time in manufacturing the doors are actually pretty much the same and anybody with a decent set of hand tools could swap out the gut from an electric window door and install the guts from a manual window door with little trouble. I would, however, appreciate a bit of reassurance. Drilling out welds is a job best left to younger men, and I have no training nor equipment to weld myself, especially inside a plastic door.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

I don't know about on a Saturn, but I did that same swap on a Geo Prizm I had several years ago and it wasn't that difficult. No welding was needed and IIRC, I didn't even have to drill any rivets. It was pretty much 10 mm nuts and some Phillips head screws. Just pay close attention to what you're doing. Taking several pics with your phone or digital camera is highly recommended and very helpful. Just take your time. And when you're ready to hang the door, an assistant comes in handy. I did it by myself using jack stands and it was a pain in the neck, back and arms too!

Not saying it can't be done, but I never heard of anyone doing it.

Before you get the door, look up the window regulator part for the electric, the window regulator part for the manual, and the door latch mechanisms or shall I say lock unlock hardware on the electric and manual window version of the door.

Any car with a power package is going to have power door locks and power windows. The combination of manual windows and power door locks I suppose as possible given the RKE configurations.

You will likely be working exclusively from the outside of the door. A series of torques screws hold the outer door panel skin to the frame of the door. Do not force anything. Do not bend the trim at the top of the window or it will never fit and stay in place again.. You will also want to remove the inner panel of the door. Make sure you slide all items like power door locks either forward or backward before pulling outwards or you will break the plastic.

Have fun with the clips for the rods that attach.

The in ner door panel is held in place by a combination of hooks and for lack of a better term push pins sitting in a well attached to the inside of the door panel that line up and it go through holes in the frame. Work the inner panel loose from the bottom up. Again do not force it or you won't break the clips that you cannot see. Once you have the inner panel off you understand what I'm talking about.

I have never tried to do this kind of swap. I've only replaced door window motors

Remember, do your homework before you start.

Thanks for the kind assistance guys. I managed to find a clean, straight door at the local pick and pull. glass intact. manual window. rear view mirror intact. door liner even clean and the right color. It is a 2001 not a 2000 but the manual says it SHOULD fit and I took a couple of critical measurements that are exactly the same so I am reasonably confident. (Thing weighs a ton or I am getting old. Or both.)

It was $70 including the mirror and hinges, plus the extortionate CA tax.

Great to hear. But I believe you overpaid by at least $2. Did you grab the hinges? Not that they will be any less worn out than yours necessarily, but you need to do the best you can to get it to fit properly. Sometimes the new hinges, however demonstrate their newness by holding the door up significantly higher, thus making it not fit the opening in the way you need it to. You'll figure it out. You carried the damn door so I'm confident

Mine wasn't wear and tear but collision damage. It was my late wife's car and that door might not have 1,000 open/close cycles on it. The bottom hinge seemed to be slightly damaged as one of the "ears" was sticking up slightly from the sheet metal. Actually I used a wheelbarrow supplied by the wrecking yard to carry the thing. Doors weigh a ton. I was even smart enough to park the wheel barrow under the door when I pulled the bolts so the door settled into the plastic wheel barrow body rather than go crunch on either me or the ground. (Sometimes I do have good ideas.) The cars in the yard are all elevated on "jack stands" made by welding one wheel rim upright on top of another wheel rim laying down flat, so people can get under them easily Its not like they don't have lots of wheel rims. Yes, I did get the hinges. They didn't charge extra. ALL car doors go for $70, doesn't matter if it is a Porsche or a Honda. Truck doors go for more. I assume because they are heavier and have more scrap value.

Random thought.

Should you ever need to pull the inner door panel, be sure to remember to remove the tiny screw located by the mirror. The one holding the inner mirror trim to the door frame. There is a hole in the inner door skin that the screw passes through. If you get frustrated and just pull the door skin, you will tear the hole and possibly wreck the mount on the inside of the door where the screw screws in. Don't ask me how I know

THANK YOU VERY MUCH. I am not known for patience and might very possibly have missed that. I will have to pull the door panel to change out the lock cylinder. Wrecking yard doors pretty much never come with keys so, unless it just happens to match my existing key (not very likely but not impossible) I will have to pull the panel to pull and change the lock.

You can swap the mechanism from a manual window door to a power window door simply enough. Just take the skin off the door and change the window regulator mechanism.

The mechanisms are interchangeable.

Long ago, I had a manual window regulator mechanism strip the gears on a '93 SL1. Rather than replace the door, I went to the junkyard and got a power window regulator mechanism from another SL. I brought it home, and swapped it into my existing door. I used the power window switch from the rear door of the car that I got the power mechanism from installed in the power lock switche's location, and ran a SINGLE wire from the fuse box to the new window switch in the door. I used a schematic to wire that front door as if it was a rear door. And everything worked fine.

My point is, that I swapped a power mechanism into a manual door, so the reverse is easily doable.

In the end, I had an SL1 with 3 manual doors, and a single power driver's door.

Preston

Thank you for closing the door on that one