Any advice on replacing doors front and second?

[Woodburyexplorer]

Hello,

New to this explorer forum. Have a 2002 late year explorer V8 and I need to replace both the front passenger and side passenger doors. The car rolled down the driveway and across the street in to some trees. Found two good doors. And Want to know what issues I may face taking off the old doors and replacing them? Any assistance or advice would be greatly appreciated...

I belong to another forum for my 1997 F350 power stroke diesel and have been an active member over there... Hope this forum works as well.

Thanks
Ray

 

[Donystoy]

Replacing doors

I have never done this and hope I will never have to. I would think that the most work would be removing the inside panels and removing the wiring connections going through the jamb. I just looked at mine and the bolts going into the door on the hinges look like the easiest ones to do. I would clean up the area around the hinges and run a felt tip marker around the outside. These marks you would then roughly transfer to the new doors. This will give you a reference point to start from when mounting the new doors. These hinge bolts usually thread into a slide plate inside the door (and jamb) to allow for adjustment. Not sure if there is something to hold these plates captive inside the door after the hinge is removed but if not they will just fall to the bottom when the door is removed from the doner vehicle. On the Explorer the jamb side appears to have studs welded to the inner adjustment plate but if you are lucky you won't have to loosen these. Certainly a two person job. A dolly with blocking would also help.

I did a similar job on a classic car and made up a frame on casters that also had height adjustment screws. Made the job a snap but impractical for a one off job.

 

[Woodburyexplorer]

Donystoy,

Thanks so much for your suggestions. I too have done lots of restoration work on brass era and "Classic era" cars from late 20s to early 30s. Mostly packards. Your suggestions will be heeded.