Tuesday, March 24, 2026

Well, I’m happy to report that I have — FINALLY — gotten all the rusted and stuck screws loose from the driver’s door interior mechanicals.

After applying Kroil yesterday to the rusted screw, I went back today and applied the impact driver. The problem was that the door had a lot of bounce, the hammer impact didn’t seem effective since the door wasn’t mounted solidly. After a few minutes, I decided the hell with it — time to break out my angle grinder. In short order, I ground the head off the stubborn screw and heard the window regulator **THUNK** to the bottom of the door.

At this point, I thought I was home free and could remove the regulator. Mmm … not quite. I forgot about the short idler track that mounts to the interior of the door shell. I tried but couldn’t remove the roller from the idler track, clearly I needed to remove the idler track. Of course, one of those screws was rusted tight. I tried the impact driver with the same results as before — zilch. After looking at the interior of the door, the idler track was in extremely rusty shape and I decided to replace that one. I broke out the angle grinder again and had it loose in no time. Success!!

NEXT STEP? The next step is to order all the parts I need, which include the window regulator; the idler track; the window track; screws for the regulators; a new vent window chrome frame; and I think that’s probably it. Oh, I saw a vendor with appropriate rivets for the vent window parts. If I can find the vendor again I’ll order a set of those.

The wait for parts may knock me from driving the car when I want, but that’s ok. I won’t put off the repairs, especially since I’m this far into it. I would love to also add door panels, carpet and rear seat panels.

But ultimately the good news is that I can now move forward and order parts tomorrow.

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