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BMW E36 Door Panel Repair
48K views
Jan 29, 2023
BMW E36 door panel repair DIY, in this video I repair my brothers BMW door panel that has fallen into disrepair. This is a common problem with e36's. The vinyl typically separates from the door panel and bubbles up, and the plastic support pieces break apart. I do not go the extra mile and repair the vinyl, as this requires a heat gun, and a special adhesive. I simply pull the panel off, glue back down the plastic brackets, and then replace the clips that hold the door panel to the frame. BMW e36 door panel repair is a relatively quick and simple process. Unfortunately if your door panel plastic pieces are completely broken you will have to order new ones.
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0:00
Hey, E36 Fanatic, Steven here. Today I'm doing a door panel repair on my brother's vehicle
0:07
and both of their cars are having door panel issues, where just over time, if you've got an older
0:14
BMW, E36 is in particular, you know that there's a bunch of plastic little pieces that hold in
0:23
your door panel. Well, over time those plastic tabs break, and then the other issue is that
0:29
The actual plastics that hold them to your door panel, also the adhesive breaks off, and then you're winding up with the plastic not even attached to your door panel anymore
0:42
So it can leave your door panel like this one is here really loose, which of course is, which is an annoying issue to have
0:52
Also, another common thing on these vehicles is that they tend to, the vinyl tends to bubble up
0:57
This one hasn't done it, but a lot of them do. My car and my brother's car is like that
1:03
It's more difficult and it's a longer process to fix those bubbles if you don't just get another door panel
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So I'm not worried about that. The only thing I'm going to do is pull this door panel off and glue back down the plastic pieces that hold on the tabs
1:21
and then replace all the tabs with new ones. So I'll have a firm door panel
1:27
Door panels are typically very easy to get off. Basically you just need a little tool that looks like a screwdriver
1:37
It's got two ends on it to pop out the rivets. And they're going to be all around the entire door panel
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And then you also have two screws. You have two buttons here that you need to just pop out with a screwdriver and you're going to have two screws here and here
1:56
that hold in your door panel to the frame. And that is going to be a T20 socket
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And then you also have, normally you have a door handle piece right here
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door handle cover, and you just pull it. You just pull it to the side and it pops right out You typically going to have a piece at the top of here that attaches to your door lock actuator You just twist it out and the black plastic piece pulls right out
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You just twist it. And then you can go ahead and remove your start the process of removing your door panel
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So to re-put these plastic pieces together, I use plastic weld epoxy
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A nice thing about it is it's got a really high PSI rate and it's got a full
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five minute set time so you don't have to sit here and hold it for too long
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Over time if you've ever owned a BMW before you know that these plastic pieces and the
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ones up here they crack, they break and the adhesive that it uses falls off over time or loosens
3:00
up so you got to re-adher it. So like I said I use this epoxy stuff
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It's really easy to use. After a few minutes it's set and I try and get it
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give it a couple hours to put the tabs back on and reuse
3:16
Then what I do, because we own several BMWs, and we're always, I'm pulling off door handles
3:24
or door panels maybe once every couple months. I buy the door panel clips in packs of 50
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so I don't have to worry about getting a few individual ones
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and I just keep them stored when I need to use them
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Because each door panel takes a lot of these door panel clips and when you pull them off usually a couple of them are going to break and they're
3:46
pretty easy to pop back off you see how they work they basically spin it into the
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holes here and to get them out I just use a flathead screwdriver usually or a
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pair of clock so you don't really need much of this stuff because this this
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epoxy is really really really tough got a really hard high PSI ready so really you're just trying to glue it on to the face of it a little bit
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All right, pop these back on. It's pretty simple. They got a little piece at the end that you basically go in, then they snap right back in
5:14
And they're going to have some play with them, playing the hole they're supposed to do that
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So it's easier to put them back on the door. And just go all around the door panel and replace all the ones that
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replace all the ones that are broken. Now technically you don't really need all of
5:34
these to hold in the door panel. It'll hold pretty tight without every single last
5:40
one of these which is why I'm not really worrying about this top piece right here
5:45
It'd be nice to have it but we're just trying to get his door panel back on so I'm
5:50
not going to worry about it. All right now it's time to put it back on
5:55
Alright so the previous owner of this car had a actually, I don't know if he was really lazy or if he didn't know what to do, but he had actually put bolts into the door frame to hold in the door panel
6:07
You can see the hole here and then, let me put one on the side too
6:13
Then this one right here, he actually put bolts into the door panel to hold it in
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So if you got this issue where your door panel's not holding in, don't bolt it in
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It's going to be a lot harder to sell when somebody sees that you bolted your door panel
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in with screws. So I've already got the door clips back on
6:40
Now most being done most cars in general they going to have some weather stripping here This doesn have that right now also you normally going to have a uh normally you going to have your door
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lock piece right here on this car the door actuator is broken where the where this piece goes in
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so i just pulled it out we're not going to replace that on this car so just get it lined up
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You'll hear it lock right in
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You need a T20 torques. You need a T20 torques. You need a T20 torques bit
7:58
What you got it
8:13
Oh, you don't know about that? Oh, I'm going to get it's up
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So, what you got those two screws in? You're just going to need your caps, which on these
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36 door panels. They're famous for they'll bubble out over time. The leather will bubble
8:34
out. They'll lose its adhesive. I haven't gotten into fixing that yet. But the very last thing
8:45
you need to do is pop your door handle back on your door. As you can see it slides in like this
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There you go, door panel it's a whole lot more solid than it was
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Hope y'all enjoyed this video. If you did, please like, comment, and subscribe
#Doors & Windows
#Home Improvement
#Vehicle Repair & Maintenance