How to: HOW TO: Replace rear door main glass, rear door vent glass, and rear door seal

[Mr. Alligator]

Another chance to say thank you to all of the experts and skilled individuals that make this Forum the best ever. Thanks again!

There are other threads on this Forum with information about the rear door main glass, the rear door vent glass, and the rear door seal, but this may help some put it all together and answer a few more questions.

THE PROBLEM:

The rear door of the second generation explorer seems to have a fail point at the back seal... the seal between the two pieces of glass gets rusty inside of the rubber lining, and you can see the rust bulge at the bottom of the trim. Also, the rear door “vent” glass slides inward, and seal opens up. The rust in the seal will eventually cause real trouble, and the parts are hard to find, I located an intact seal at salvage, and bought the whole door for $40. This allowed me to take it home and work comfortably at my home.

The first step is to remove the interior door panel. Remove the interior door handle trim, the two screws holding the door grip.

A HINT:

When you are working on this project, it is necessary to move the main window up and down to make room for seals and to access rivets, especially rivets for the rear main glass regulator. It is very helpful to have twelve volt power to use the rear window motor for this purpose.

The wires that power the rear window motor are both yellow, one with a blue stripe, and the other with a black stripe. To reverse the motor direction, just reverse the twelve volt polarity by switching the power and ground wires between these yellow wires.

If you are working on your car, you can access the window switch on the bottom of the rear door window switch with probes from a twelve volt source to the yellow wires described above. On a salvage vehicle, you might have to cut the wires nearer to the rear window motor to apply power. Either way, you must be able to move the rear main window up and down to clear room for seals and line up access holes for the removal of rivets and replacement of the rivets with nuts and bolts and lock washers.

If your rear window motor does not work, which would be unusual, you will need to find an alternate way to release the window regulator. You might be able to drill out the three regulator rivets, but the project would be increasingly
more difficult.

Twelve volt power to the rear window motor is very helpful.

 

[Mr. Alligator]

To remove the door interior panel, you must remove the interior handle trim (marked with green arrows), the door interior trim screws (marked in red arrows), the door panel Christmas tree fasteners on the around the lower and middle perimeter of the panel (approximate position marked in yellow). You can use a panel removal tool or a blade knife for this purpose. Tape the blade of you are concerned about the paint. The entire interior door panel then lifts up and off of the door trim slot near the bottom of the window.

 

[Mr. Alligator]

IF YOU ARE JUST REPLACING THE REAR VENT GLASS, you do NOT have to remove the entire rear main window. You can work around it instead. Release the bracket to the rear main window seal, lower the rear main window to get it out of the way and work around it.

IF YOU JUST REPLACING THE REAR MAIN WINDOW, you do NOT have to remove the entire rear vent seal. You will have to release the bracket to the seal, and then work around the seal. I am not sure if you would have to remove the rear main vent glass, or if you can work around it. My guess is you can work around it.

IF YOU ARE REPLACING THE REAR MAIN WINDOW SEAL, you will have to remove the rear main window to get the bracket to the rear main window seal out of the door. Of course, you would also have to remove the rear vent window, which easily slips out of the rear main window seal after the bracket in the door is released.

Although I had the entire rear door apart to replace the rear main window seal, I never released the forward guide to the rear main window, which helped keep parts lined up. I also never released the rear window regulator or the rear window motor.

This is the rear main window seal, with the permanently attached bracket which also serves as the rear main window guide.

 

[Mr. Alligator]

This is how the rusted rear main window seal looks. Once it starts rusting inside the rubber coating, and many do, I do not think you can stop the rust or even slow it down.

Here is a small cross section of the rear main window seal, especially in the area which supports the rear vent window and serves as the rear main window guide. This just shows the metal guide post encapsulated in rubber coating.

 

[Mr. Alligator]

Back to the project. After the door panel is removed, you can access the rear main seal bracket, which also serves as the rear main glass aft guide. 11 mm wrench. Easy.

 

[Mr. Alligator]

The most difficult part of this project is removing the rear main window glass from the regulator. This requires drilling out two aluminum rivets. You must line up the window, hopefully using the window motor, to allow the rivets to be seen through openings in the rear door metal panel.

The second rivet is in position, but not visible because of the lighting.

A punch or similar tool can be used to knock out the center pin of the rivets. Then they must be drilled out. Be careful to stay centered on the rivet. Go slow .... if the drill bit gets off center, this chore gets more obnoxious. You probably need pliers to hold the rivet in place after it starts spinning.

This is the single most time tedious part of the project.

 

[Mr. Alligator]

To remove the rear main glass from the door, you will need to remove the exterior and interior lower belt moldings. This is easy.

The interior belt molding strip just slides off by carefully lifting upwards. The exterior molding is held by a nut on the inside of the door, After the nut is removed, the exterior molding simply lifts off.

This is the nut for the exterior belt molding strip:

 

[Mr. Alligator]

To replace the rear main glass, slide it though the opening in the door frame. Consider taping the edges of the door to avoid scratching the glass.

To secure the connection between the regulator and window bracket, small nuts and bolts are much easier than rivets. It would seem to be extraordinarily difficult to reinstall rivets in that small recessed opening, at least not without a specialized rivet tool. I used slightly larger bolts, may 5/16”?, with locking star washers. Be mindful of your clearances, I used a 1/2” bolt on the side nearest the bigger opening. Then used a 3/4 “ bolt on the tighter side, which a little trickier to access. Make sure to insert these bolts so that the head remains visible on the regulator, as clearances become very tight when then the window is lowered. Use of the slightly larger bolts required very slight drilling of the regulator and window brackets, but resulted in a very strong connection.

This is the door frame without the interior belt molding and without the exterior belt molding. Lower belt molding is easy...

 

[Mr. Alligator]

After the rivets are replaced with bolts, things go much faster. Just secure the rear main window trim as required. The rear window vent slips very easily into the rear main trim. Make sure the rear main seal bracket, also the rear main window guide is bolted back in place. The belt moldings are easy. The rear interior door panel is easy.

This project could be done in well under two hours, if you knew what you were doing, had all of the right tools and sharp drill bits, never misplaced things, never cleaned parts you could not see or would not use, and did not make mistakes. This was not me. It took me two relaxed mornings. And it was interesting and appealed to my OCD.

 

[Mr. Alligator]

You should be finished.

Hope this helps someone, sometime.

Good luck, and happy Exploring.

 

[Floridacatfan2020]

That’s a really nice repair - I would move it into 2nd gen best