Undoor the door

It's a big day today.

1st of March, otherwise known as the feast day of Saint David.  But the big news is work continues on the Leaf.   

This time we are going to loose some weight from the nearside rear door.  We'll start this adventure with the handle cover.  Pulling it off reveals an M10 screw.

After removing the screw, we can now turn our attention to the window switch.  The switch bezel can easily be popped out.

You can see how the actual window switch is clipped into the back of the bezel.

Beneath where the bezel was, we have this M10 Philips head screw that along with the previous screw holds the door card on.

As implied, take the screw off and sure enough, as expected, the door card pops off.  Almost.

There are a few poppers holding the thing on.  Gently pulling on the poppers releases them without breaking anything.  The door card is now completely free of the door.  Nearly.

The door handle is still fixed to the door card.  You can get a very informative view it from behind.  We absolutely still need the door handle in order to open and close the door, but we do not need the door card, not now, not ever, so it's getting unscrewed.

Finally the door card is removed, for real this time.  So now we have a hangy door handle which we will try and forget for now and worry about another day.  Removing the door card gives us access to the other contents of the door.

Careful examination reveals to us how the speaker has been assembled into the door.  3 screws and a clip.

Bye bye speaker.

Next is the window regulator which is an assembly consisting of the electric window motor and other bits that move the window up and down.  This assembly is hiding inside the door but the screws that hold it there are extremely assessable now.

Anything involving glass is a potentially hazardous situation.  Now that the screws have been removed the window regulator is now roaming around inside the door and potentially no longer holding the glass in place.  But now that it is free to move it can be captured and released.

Only when it has been safely encouraged out of the door can we get our first proper good look of the window regulator.

Now this assembly not only opens and closes the window, it also keeps the window closed, and open.  In other words there is nothing now to keep the window closed.  The glass won't suspend itself.  We are not going to sort that out right now.  But what we can do, temporarily, is something else that keeps the window closed.

Also as well as that thing there is another additional thing we can do.

So where does that leave us.  Obviously with more questions than answers.  So let's start by ending with what weight has been removed.

Let's bring back the scales:

In no particular order:

Window switch bezel including the switch itself and miscellaneous bits 131g

Door card 2000g

Window regulator 1015g

Window speaker 198g

Sub-total: 3344g

Now everything in today's update we will also do for the offside door, exactly the same, but to avoid repetition we are not going to blog it, we hope there are no hard feelings.  Because of  this, and because we simply cannot wait, we are going to speculate that the offside door components will weigh the same.

3344g + 3344g = 6688g

Let us add that to the 42.2kg we know has come out of the car previously, then we have a total weight saved so far.

Total: 48.9kg

Not bad for 2.5 man hours.  Which is the weight of an adult gazelle, which is certainly not what you want in your car, under no circumstances.  Whatsoever.