if you have a gm truck or suv then
you've probably encountered this
yeah so uh doesn't matter front doors
back doors this is a pretty severe one
it's broken on both these usually just
one of them usually the front side
brakes on that but
how do we change that out we're going to
show you today
in just one moment broken door handles
are a real pain
but we're going to fix them i'm tim
johnson you're watching shop tour
reviews
well if you're like me and you happen to
be a gm family and you've got gm
full-size suvs gm pickup trucks so like
your silverados
even your gmc sierras uh your gmc yukons
chevrolet tahoe suburbans escalades
you name it they have these same door
handles from like 2007 up
even going back to 2001 a little bit
different door handle but they all
suffer the same problem they break
they're made of plastic
and they break that's part of the
problem of having a plastic society
i don't know if we have a plastic
society but anyway how do we change
these out they're actually pretty easy
to do
couple little tips and tricks that
should help you in installing these and
doing it the right way and not hurting
something and maybe even
making a little easier for you this
specific one is going on a 2012 escalade
this one's broke on the right rear
actually the right front is broke as
well and i think maybe even the
passenger rear yeah and somehow i think
it has to do with maybe
kids hanging off these handles when they
pull on them hard but anyway i got a
whole four pack of these for like 50
bucks
you can get them from gm as well pay a
little more if you want to do that but
my thoughts are they all break
but anyway make sure that you're getting
the correct ones make sure you line them
up to
make sure they you're putting on the
correct one and also when you get them
that you're getting the correct handle
as well let's get to it then we'll come
back and wrap it up
so the first thing we want to do is open
the door we're going to attack this
all from the inside or at least till we
get most of it loose
actually this one with it broken in both
spots i could go ahead and
take this out but just keep in mind
these are the two bolts will be taken
out so
normally just the front side is broken
where you get give all the strain
and you'll have to get inside to take
these
this bolt out of this nutsert here and
able to get this handle off and then
you're still
connected to this pin right here so i'm
going to put this back in place
we're going to get it from the inside
first things first we're going to lay
out some protection there on the seats
and going to bring a few tools in
okay the first thing we want to do is
take a couple of these little panels out
that will
then show us where our bolts and screws
are
i'm going to take my little pick here
and pick right
in here and pop this little panel out of
place
and the same goes right in here
under the handle this little panel pops
out as well
and in here we've got a 10 millimeter
bolt here
and two 10 millimeters here as well
and then we've got this little panel
here
that will also pop up out of place
that's your power window switch
and press that little clip there and
that should pull right off
now we also need to pull off our lock so
you pry this little guy out of the way
once it pops out then you can slide that
right off the rod
okay now is where we need a pry bar and
we can try a plastic pry bar but a lot
of times
these things have a little more force
than will allow you to pry with a
plastic pry bar
but what the plastic will allow me to do
is to get my metal tool in there
and i can be careful if i'm if i needed
to i could wrap this in tape to keep
from
you know hurting the the finish here
so once we get this starting to pop
loose we can then reach around
and use our hands to pull those out
and we want to lift up a little bit once
we get all them popped off
and lift it off this rubber here
and now all we have left is our door
handle that's connected
by this cable as you see right here now
for this door handle i will show you in
a second once i get it out but
it's a little bit of a pain but i find
that if i take a little
bent pair of needle nose little small
ones even if they're smooth
jaws and reach in here and you basically
got to depress
two sides of it to pop this clip out
and you can rotate it in your fingers if
you need to
and then you can slide it off the door
handle
so you can see here you've got these two
prongs here
that you have to depress you can use a
pig you can use a screwdriver but i like
these little bent needle nose i can get
in there
squeeze the squeeze those together pull
it out and then
release the knob from the lever so now
we've got our door panel off and out of
the way
okay now we want to peel this away and
by the way try to keep your butyl on
here
and if you'll be careful with it and
just kind of peel it back
with the foam then you'll be able to
keep this vapor barrier kind of intact
and not
tear and also not leave any butyl on the
door
and we don't have to peel the whole
thing off we just need access to this
area here
and one of the areas we're going to need
access is behind this rubber grommet
here that's actually
lined up with one of our bolt holes so
just pop that out
and then we'll have a 10 millimeter bolt
that we will get to from the door
door handle right through there now we
can take our 10 millimeter
and we can put it on this bolt here
and back that one out but before we do
that we need to put some pliers on the
other side
where those uh where those pieces have
broken off
so on this one we've kind of lucked out
because both of them are broke i don't
have to have them removed yet and i'm
just going to pull this out and we can
see
our handle rod right there and i can
just kind of work this off
off that elbow be careful not to scratch
your vehicle
so once i work that off and i'll leave
that there but now i need to put some
pliers on here
and here to back off those nuts
that one backed off
we got that one started so once we've
got them broken free
i can get in here
[Music]
and there's our broken nut from the
other side
the other one
another broken nut discard that one now
we're ready to put the new one on
so we first want to compare our handles
to make sure that we have the proper
handle
make sure that the orientation is
correct on it and that the mechanism
is going the same way and it looks like
that this one
is now also typically on the back
there'll be some type of uh
marking like this says rr so that should
be right rear so this is passenger rear
so that should be correct
so this the right one again just make
sure that you have this the correct
handle
that it's the you know right hue whether
it's a painted
whether it's black or chrome obviously
this is a chrome
and then that your mechanism is the same
as well
one thing to point out here you'll see
this
little lip right here that right there a
lot of times i will see these
misinstalled because
what people don't do is they don't
realize that that thing right there
hooks in to this slot right here so
so once we get it in we'll push it in
and slide it over
to lock that tab in under this metal
here and that gives it some more
stability
i will see all the time that i'll see a
door handle and it'll be bulged
out right here and it won't be seated
against this paint
and it's because they don't have that
hooked up under that lip like it's
supposed to be
again let's hook it up to our rod slide
that over
then you kind of want to fish this in
again try not to scar the paint
and so before we run our nuts in again
if we just pushed it in
we wouldn't get that seated correctly so
kind of slide it forward
get it pushed in and slide it over so
now we've got it hooked in we're nice
and flush through here
and once we put our bolts in we'll be
nice and flush here as well
so that's locked in you see i have no
bolts in there yet but yet that
is nice and tight it's not pulling away
there i pulled it away then
but again if i get it in and slide it
over
now it's locked into place once i get my
bolts in
it'll be pulled tight on either end and
it'll be held by that tab there in the
center
give a little tip so we've got to take
our bolts and put them in our socket
and then feed them through this hole
right here as well as through here and
there's a good chance we could drop that
down in the door
so one easy thing to do you can really
take anything you could take a napkin
you could take a piece of plastic i'm
just taking a piece of tape just put it
over your socket like that
and then shove the bolt down in there
and so now that's going to hold that in
place
while you feed that bolt into that into
those two holes
before you snug that one too tight you
want to
start your other one so get the other
one in there my tape was still in my
socket
and you probably want to make sure and
start that by hand
now let's make sure that it's unlocked
and then we'll test to make sure it
works before we button everything up
and now we want to make sure it works
yep works now we'll pull our plastic off
here
there we go
so now you just want to do the reverse
of how we uh took it off
and so we're going to first put our
rubber plug in
make sure that everything's on your on
your vapor barrier here
and we'll by the way if anything is
ripped or anything else use a little
contact cement maybe even a little
plastic
to patch things up to glue these things
back in place it is pretty important
that you keep any of that
moisture from accessing any of your
electronics or your door panel
and make sure that your power window
wire is going to feed through the hole
but first we can put the door handle on
pretty easy you put the ball
inside the handle and then pop that back
into place pretty self-explanatory going
back on
again make sure we put our wire through
the hole
raise this up and the lip of this door
panel is going to sit down in that
in that groove on that rubber
we also want to make sure that our that
our lock rod
goes into place as well
there we go and make sure that our
wires through here
make sure your your clips are lined up
pop those into place feel around make
sure all around the door
you're nice and secure you're in the
right spot
make sure that's also over your weather
stripping here
it's back on
there we go make sure when it locks it's
pretty flush right here make sure that
looks good
two 10 millimeters here
and our 110 millimeter here
pop this panel into place
and this one make sure it's orientated
right oriented right
pop that in make sure we have no missing
pieces
hopefully that helps you out as far as
tools needed one thing i like i think
this is from lyle corporation
but this is basically kind of an
anti-marring
plastic interior trim tool set so
shouldn't just say interior trim i mean
really exterior trim as well
whether you're working around glass
upholstery things like that
i like to use plastic wherever you can
then you don't mar the finish or
anything else
helps in being a little safer if you
will or at least
taking care of the surroundings but then
sometimes you really do need a
a metal pry tool so we used a one of the
door pry tools
uh that's from our sonic set as well as
we use
some needle nose pliers some channel
lock pliers
as well as a little pick you always have
have to have a little pick when you're
undoing
wiring connectors uh even the things the
little door panel
covers and things like that a little
light helps you
as well and then our little trick of
putting some tape on our 10-mm socket to
back those bolts out not
losing them and by the way you'll need a
10-millimeter
most of the time nothing else needed on
these gm most of the time once you pull
the
the the covers off you got a couple of
10 millimeter bolts maybe some eight
millimeters on some of the cars
maybe some phillips heads as well but
very few tools needed
in this process got a couple of extras
laying here
and also let me also mention that when i
pulled the
the plastic off of this i would
recommend pulling it off the edges first
if you don't want to pull it all the way
off because
once i got it bolted on i really had to
dig out where
some of that plastic had gotten pinched
in there so to clean it up nice it took
a little time
so maybe you want to peel that away
before you finish bolting that on
we'll leave a link in the description
for uh all these door handles that we
bought we got a four pack i think it was
like 50 bucks 52 bucks something like
that
or you can buy them on their own i think
they may be 15 or 16
a piece maybe 20 bucks a piece and we'll
leave a link in the description for
the interior trim set that we used as
well
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