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Get yourself a nice long and heavy punch. If at all possible, hook your fingers around the bottom of the window/track to keep it steady, line up the punch with the post in the center of the rivet and give it a swift whack with your hammer. The post should pop out fairly easily. Then use the smallest drill bit that is enough larger than the inner hole of the rivet to cut away the head leaving only the tube, drill until it just barely cuts through the head, and if necessary use a tool to pry the rim of the rivet away. Then you can push the rivet tube out of the hole with your punch.
The other way to go is to unbolt pretty much everything in the door, and wiggle/walk the lower window track roller out of it's guide. Detach the weatherstripping at the rear of the door. Then wiggle and walk the window until the roller is back by the gap created by removing the weatherstripping, and carefully work it up, tilting the window until the washers that retain the window to the lower track slip up and out of the door, then tilt the window towards the car rolling it over until the roller clears. It's like moving an oversized couch through a tight doorway, gotta get the angle just right. If you're not concerned about the door you can also flex the inner structure or the outer skin far enough apart to make a bigger gap, but I wouldn't recommend that if you want to save the door.
Get yourself a nice long and heavy punch. If at all possible, hook your fingers around the bottom of the window/track to keep it steady, line up the punch with the post in the center of the rivet and give it a swift whack with your hammer. The post should pop out fairly easily. Then use the smallest drill bit that is enough larger than the inner hole of the rivet to cut away the head leaving only the tube, drill until it just barely cuts through the head, and if necessary use a tool to pry the rim of the rivet away. Then you can push the rivet tube out of the hole with your punch.
The other way to go is to unbolt pretty much everything in the door, and wiggle/walk the lower window track roller out of it's guide. Detach the weatherstripping at the rear of the door. Then wiggle and walk the window until the roller is back by the gap created by removing the weatherstripping, and carefully work it up, tilting the window until the washers that retain the window to the lower track slip up and out of the door, then tilt the window towards the car rolling it over until the roller clears. It's like moving an oversized couch through a tight doorway, gotta get the angle just right. If you're not concerned about the door you can also flex the inner structure or the outer skin far enough apart to make a bigger gap, but I wouldn't recommend that if you want to save the door.
thanks Drew! I’ll have to try. Im scared about shattering the window but i’ll give it the ol one two and see what happens!
Get yourself a nice long and heavy punch. If at all possible, hook your fingers around the bottom of the window/track to keep it steady, line up the punch with the post in the center of the rivet and give it a swift whack with your hammer. The post should pop out fairly easily. Then use the smallest drill bit that is enough larger than the inner hole of the rivet to cut away the head leaving only the tube, drill until it just barely cuts through the head, and if necessary use a tool to pry the rim of the rivet away. Then you can push the rivet tube out of the hole with your punch.
The other way to go is to unbolt pretty much everything in the door, and wiggle/walk the lower window track roller out of it's guide. Detach the weatherstripping at the rear of the door. Then wiggle and walk the window until the roller is back by the gap created by removing the weatherstripping, and carefully work it up, tilting the window until the washers that retain the window to the lower track slip up and out of the door, then tilt the window towards the car rolling it over until the roller clears. It's like moving an oversized couch through a tight doorway, gotta get the angle just right. If you're not concerned about the door you can also flex the inner structure or the outer skin far enough apart to make a bigger gap, but I wouldn't recommend that if you want to save the door.
I swear the rivets GM used in mine are made out of titanium. I tried a punch and it didn;t move the center of the rivet at all. It could have been I was scared to shatter the glass but still, I think I punched it pretty hard.
I ended up using a dremel cutting when and grinding off the rivet head then tapping the center out slowly..slowly because these things are damn hard lol
I then proceeded to grab the rest of the rivet and throw it far across the street as hard as I could. 1 down...2 more...harder to reach rivets of course.......to go.
Why did GM use rivets for these? I noticed in 1st, 2nd, and 4th gen videos that the glass is all bolted in!
Ha ok. I took some pictures of the pins, rivets etc when I pulled mine apart. Do you mind if I add them to your post?
No problem at all!
I here people prefer to use rivets to replace the old ones.....I have no idea where you would find replacement rivets for the window though? I think they are a softer rivet and its kinda scary rivetign through glass.
Thought I would add a couple pictures for anyone not knowing exactly what they were looking for when doing this for the first time.
Here's what the pieces look like after being removed.
The pin that goes thru the rivet sleeve, the sleeve, and the head of the rivet after being drilled.
The pin comes out of the door skin side after you punch it out.
Like Drew recommended above, I used a good sized heavy punch to start the pin moving, then used the smaller one to drive the pin out the rest of the way thru the sleeve.
Next is the glass looking from the skin side of the door. This is what it looks like in there with the pin coming out.
And the drill bit I used to remove the head off the rivet
A 1/4" would probably work fine but mine was MIA so I used the next bigger size. 9/32
This is the first door I ever removed a panel from and the plastic had never been touched. So without removing it, I put a slice in where my light is hanging because I was removing the door handle & lock too. If you can zoom in where the yellow tape is, you'll see the 3 rivet locations where I pushed the punch & drill bit thru the plastic cover. Actually only 2...the one at the front of the door was accessed thru an opening in the sheet metal. With the window down about an inch or so, you can get all 3 in sight without moving the glass again.
Obviously this is the passenger side door. Worked the same on the drivers door.
I was worried about breaking the glass with a punch.... honestly the way i did.... cutting / dremeling it was a real pita hahaha
ALSO CRAFTSMAN drill bits suck from my experience lol if I just got a good drill bit I probably would have saved myself some major headache.
Honestly didn't even worry about it. There's so much movement in the glass & mechanism holding it, I just hit it!
I did have the outside sweep off too which may have give more play, but that probably worked against me anyway.
Honestly didn't even worry about it. There's so much movement in the glass & mechanism holding it, I just hit it!
I did have the outside sweep off too which may have give more play, but that probably worked against me anyway.
Nice!!
I don't understand why GM couldn't be normal and just use bolts to hold the glass like every other manufacturer...........even my s-10 uses bolts!!!!!!!!
08-04-2018, 03:21 PM
