[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]How to remove the door panel on a 1999 - 2004 Ford Mustang[/FONT]
I've seen a few posts on people asking how to do different things as far as removing the door panel and it's pieces and I know a lot of people buy new speakers so I figured I'd make up a little walk-through with pics and what-not.[/FONT] [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]WARNING: I'm extremely bad at photoshop so I used my most basic skills on this... flame away.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The Mustang actually has one of the easiest door to take off, but one of the hardest to put back on. It's quite simple once you get the hang of it.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The first thing you'll need to do in order to get the door panel removed is to take out the bezel in the middle of the door. You'll need to pop out the top part of the bezel and lift up slightly, then with both hands, grab the bezel and tug firmly on it in a straight upward direction in order to pop the clip out of it's socket. The clip is located where the bottom red circle is there so you want to place your hands around that and pull straight out so you don't snap this. I remind you that anything you break on this bezel ruins the entire bezel because it won't fit right and you have to buy a new one (23 bucks from Randy had to get one myself). Also, be careful not to pull the bezel too far out because your wiring is still all hooked up to your switches.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]When you turn the bezel around and look at the back of the switches you have 2 screws and a clip. Just pull the clip off and unscrew the two screws to release the switches from the bezel. I suggest pulling gently on the wires to remove the switches from the switch housing because if you pull the switch housing from the bezel, you must buy a new bezel because your switches will be sitting inside your door.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Next thing is to remove this plastic plug from the door panel. It's located near the bottom edge of the door where the door hinges are. It's a bitch to pull out. You can use as much force as nessecary to pull this sucker out, if it breaks you can buy bags of these for a couple bucks at your local auto parts store. Most likely it won't break and it'll just bend the frindges in the opposite direction which will work out nicely because they'll need to be facing that way when you put it back in the door.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The last set of screws in the two from behind the bezel. These are just #2 phillips screws that can be removed easily. No trouble here.[/FONT]
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Now that you have everything unhooked you can start removing the door panel. The easiest way is to start from the bottom up. Just take your palm and start pushing up on the bottom of the door panel all the way down it and work your way up. Grab that sucker, pull up and take it off. Make sure once you get it off you have to slide it towards the front of the car to get it around the door handle.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Here you have your speaker housing which is 6x8 but because Ford is a little homo in the audio department Pioneer is really the only 6x8's that fit. You can put different 6x8's or even different size speakers in there, but you have to drill your own holes and have to make sure that the tweeter doesn't stick out too far. As you can see, the tweeters on my speakers are pretty damn big and almost touch the speaker cover when I put the panel on.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Putting the door panel on is the same steps in reverse but make sure that after you get the panel around the door handle, you line up the hooks shown in the picture with the holes in your door and that your lock pin is inside the lock pin hole in the panel. If you don't have the pin in the hole then your panel won't fit.[/FONT]
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I've seen a few posts on people asking how to do different things as far as removing the door panel and it's pieces and I know a lot of people buy new speakers so I figured I'd make up a little walk-through with pics and what-not.[/FONT] [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]WARNING: I'm extremely bad at photoshop so I used my most basic skills on this... flame away.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The Mustang actually has one of the easiest door to take off, but one of the hardest to put back on. It's quite simple once you get the hang of it.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The first thing you'll need to do in order to get the door panel removed is to take out the bezel in the middle of the door. You'll need to pop out the top part of the bezel and lift up slightly, then with both hands, grab the bezel and tug firmly on it in a straight upward direction in order to pop the clip out of it's socket. The clip is located where the bottom red circle is there so you want to place your hands around that and pull straight out so you don't snap this. I remind you that anything you break on this bezel ruins the entire bezel because it won't fit right and you have to buy a new one (23 bucks from Randy had to get one myself). Also, be careful not to pull the bezel too far out because your wiring is still all hooked up to your switches.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]When you turn the bezel around and look at the back of the switches you have 2 screws and a clip. Just pull the clip off and unscrew the two screws to release the switches from the bezel. I suggest pulling gently on the wires to remove the switches from the switch housing because if you pull the switch housing from the bezel, you must buy a new bezel because your switches will be sitting inside your door.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Next thing is to remove this plastic plug from the door panel. It's located near the bottom edge of the door where the door hinges are. It's a bitch to pull out. You can use as much force as nessecary to pull this sucker out, if it breaks you can buy bags of these for a couple bucks at your local auto parts store. Most likely it won't break and it'll just bend the frindges in the opposite direction which will work out nicely because they'll need to be facing that way when you put it back in the door.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The last set of screws in the two from behind the bezel. These are just #2 phillips screws that can be removed easily. No trouble here.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
Now that you have everything unhooked you can start removing the door panel. The easiest way is to start from the bottom up. Just take your palm and start pushing up on the bottom of the door panel all the way down it and work your way up. Grab that sucker, pull up and take it off. Make sure once you get it off you have to slide it towards the front of the car to get it around the door handle.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Here you have your speaker housing which is 6x8 but because Ford is a little homo in the audio department Pioneer is really the only 6x8's that fit. You can put different 6x8's or even different size speakers in there, but you have to drill your own holes and have to make sure that the tweeter doesn't stick out too far. As you can see, the tweeters on my speakers are pretty damn big and almost touch the speaker cover when I put the panel on.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Putting the door panel on is the same steps in reverse but make sure that after you get the panel around the door handle, you line up the hooks shown in the picture with the holes in your door and that your lock pin is inside the lock pin hole in the panel. If you don't have the pin in the hole then your panel won't fit.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Write-up by: slick @ mustangboards.com[/FONT]