Excellent job Eqinox. You are THE MAN

 

Equinox,

For the Alternator cable, I'm assuming you have to remove the airbox, belt and loosen the Alternator to gain access to it's rear? I realize you did the AOS at the same time and am having a hard time following the procedure backwards.

Thanks,

 

I PM'd you my phone number

Correct. Give me a call, and I can help once I understand where you are stuck, and I'll reply here later on a possible issue with my how to, with your question.

 

Equinox, this is by Far the best thread I have read! Whatever you do, you must do it very well!
I had a hard time just deciding if I was going to Paint the S Red!
Great write-ups!

 

lol eldertec, thanks. Admittedly I have the same dilemma.

Next up - Adjusting the window.

Problem: I hear wind noise from the passenger window when there is a slight crosswind hitting it. To ensure this isn't from the side mirror, I pushed out on the window while driving, and the window was loose enough to be pushed out a little, and cause even more wind noise. My driver window I could not push out at all, and I could not get it to create window noise while driving. This indicates an out of alignment (sagging) window on the passenger side. The solution I have in mind is to take off the door card/panel and pull up the window glass just a "smidge" to allow for a tight seal with the window rubber. If you have this same problem, see below for solution.


NOTE: You can adjust the window with these instructions, but I found out the wind noise was actually the belt line being loose. See here

Tools you will need:
Needle Nose pliers (to pull plastic rivets)
Torx Bit Screw driver, sizes T30 and T20
Small soft plastic wedge to pull on interior peices, or small flathead if you're brave and don't drink caffiene (I used my fingers though)
Hammer, Nail, and cloth?* (See description on removing small plastic circle behind door handle, I used a hammer, cloth, and nail. You may want to try something else.)
Needle Nose Pliers
Time: About an hour


ABOVE: Pull on your door handle, and unscrew the bolt holding it in place using a T20 Torx bit. This will be the only one this size, as the rest are T30. Slide off the handle, and put aside.


ABOVE: End of the door card shown. Pull off this small plastic plate with your fingers, or a small soft plastic wedge to reveal a torx bolt holding on the door card.


ABOVE: Remove this bolt


ABOVE: Small plastic triangle that covers the interior portion of the door mirror. Pull out on the bottom of this triangle to release from door, then slide upwards. Close up of the top hooking mechanism to show you why you slide this up after releasing the bottom.


ABOVE: Fuzzy picture of plastic triangle shown so you can see the lower two clips that hold it in.


ABOVE: Single bolt revealed after removing the plastic triangle cover. Unscrew this.


ABOVE: Pull out this small rectangle cover below the interior door handle, and next to the door speaker. Deep in this cubby hole, you will reveal another bolt. Remove.


ABOVE: The revealed bolt shown for clarity of location.


ABOVE: Using your thumb, press on the top of the small circle of plastic. If you press firm enough, the opposite side of the circle will pop out of the hole. Trial and error wins here. You may even try pressing on the bottom portion, whichever seems to give a little - and the other side will pop up.


ABOVE: Last bolt is hidden under the small leather arm rest portiong nearest the pull handle. Pull up on this with your fingers, and there will be a bolt deep in the exposed space. You may need a flashlight to see it, but most likely you can just feel it with your trox screw driver.

After all the above steps are done, you will want to have a pair of needle nose pliers nearby to assist with unhooking the door card from the door.

Slip your fingers behind the rim of the doorcard, pulling firmly until you feel the plastic rivets near your fingers pop out. Countinue this action all the way around the door card, until it comes free. The door card will only have about 5 inches of slack due to the connected wires, so tilt it towards you, and remove the following.


ABOVE: Pictures is the speaker connector tying the door card to the door, you can split this easily with just your fingers. Push down on the only clip on the harness, and pull apart. Note, one side is very short, so make sure you are pulling on both parts, and not trying to split one side from itself, (have experience trying this, lol.0


ABOVE: There is a pink harness mounted on the door itself. Pull downward on the orange handled portion as if you were flipping a breaker. This will release the whole harness from the window regulator mounted on the door frame.


ABOVE: Here it is released with the orange handle pulled downward. As you can see, some of my white harness portion is broken. Odd. Someone has been here, and it appears they are from Slovania.


ABOVE: This is the door handle pull cord on the back of the door card. Pull the little white prongs outward allowing you to slide the white clip out.


ABOVE: Here is the white clip pulled out. Now, using a small flat head or your fingernail, pull up and out on the small black plastic ring surrounding the metal hook on the end of the cable. This small ring is keeping the hook inside. Slide the plastic ring up onto the hook to get it out of the way.


ABOVE: Here is the shape of the hook, it is easy to remove, and not too hard to guide out of the handle bracket.


ABOVE: The cable shown completely out. This will allow you to place the door panel/card elsewhere to give you room to work.


ABOVE: Once you have removed your door panel completely, you may notice that it may left behind a couple black rivets. Remove these from your metal inner door panel, and re attach them to the door card. This will allow you to remount the door card correctly.


ABOVE: Here is one of the rivets as I put it back on the door card.


ABOVE: There are two rubber plugs hiding my adjustment bolts. Here is a picture of the front most. Remove the rubber plug to gain access.


ABOVE: Rubber plug shown nearest the rear of the door.


ABOVE: Forward-most adjustment bolt shown T30, note it's bottomed out, this is my culprit. Loosen both the front and rear a few turns, just enough to adjust the window. Pull up on the window glass from above, and tighten the adjustment bolts where you need them. I just pulled up about an 1/16" of an inch on the front most bolt only, matching the rear one, and r- tightened both. I closed the door, and attempted to push out on the window glass, and it would not budge, just like the driver side.


ABOVE: Rear most of the door adjustment bolt. Note this side is not bottomed out, and actually fine for my window alignment.
Once you believe you have gotten the correct alignment, roll the window up and down before replacing the door panel. This will let you see if the bolts are tight enough, and not causing any clunking noises.

Replace door panel with reverse instructions.

Also, you may want to reset the power window up and down positions by following your car's manual. Basically you hold down the power window switch for something like 10 seconds, then release and hold down again, then up for 10, and up again for 10. Something like that. RTFM. Then, go driving. Now that your window is quiet, you will now notice the side mirror wind noise everyone is talking about. WTH. (this only fixed some of the wind noise, see here for the louder reason for all the noise.

 

All right, I think that's everything. Ended up using tinypic.com to host all the images because I went over my board limit.

 

Hey Equinox, just wanted to say thanks again for your writeup about the trunk switch. I repaired it about a month ago. Wasn't too bad, just a little frustrating fishing around for those two screws that hold the bottom trim to the car. I took the switch apart, and the problem ended up being a broken trace on the small circuit board of the switch. Repaired it and put everything back together. Works perfect now.

 

replaced the starter last weekend, it was getting weak on me at 74,000 miles. Sorry for the lack of a how-to. I've been lazy since the board will no longer let me upload images. I have one picture to show for the ordeal however.

Basically you could use my alternator cable assembly how to accomplish the following-

Disconnect battery, remove airbox, remove accessory belt, remove throttle body, remove distro tube, remove alternator, and lastly:

Remove starter with an E-10, and a couple of extensions. I used my 60 degree wobble extension as previously described to get on top of the torx bolt head holding the starter. There are two(2 o'clock and 8 o'clock, and the one on top just needs a wobble extension for best bite. The lower one is why you removed the alternator. You have to use about 20" worth of extensions to slip under the intake manifold and starter to get the lower bolt. The included picture shows how I went in to get it.

 

NOTE: Huge note on replacing the starter.

on the back of the starter, one of the terminals has a small metal tab sticking out. A male blade connector. I didn't notice at first, but my replacement starter from DCAuto didn't have the black plastic cover of this blade on it. When I installed the new starter, every time I tried to connect the battery back up under the hood, the starter would try to start the car without end. I noticed the difference, and plucked the small plastic guard off the original starter, and put it on the new one. Don't forget this, or your car will crank on its own.



Overall, since I've taken apart all this stuff before, it only took me about 2 and a half hours sitting on a little craftsman rolling stool. Drank about 2 beers, as it moved rather smoothly. Use the above picture to make sure you reconnect the terminals correctly. The cables on the back are held on with 13mm nuts if memory suits me.

 

Also, although I have no pictures of it, I fixed a streak that kept showing up on the inside of my passenger window every time I rolled it down and back up. I took apart the pass door panel like the previous how to on fixing window noise. I couldn't see anything, so I then took off the inner metal door panel with just a torx bit. T-30 I believe. Be sure to take a picture of the torx screws on the inner door panel before you take them out, as there are many holes that have thread, but no bolts in them, so don't confuse yourself on reassembly. When I took off the inner door panel, two nuts fell into the door that were holding on the belt line that encapsulates the glass at the top of the door. I grabbed them and re tightened on the black plastic belt line that holds and aligns the glass, (different than the adjustment screws I previously messed with), and the problem was solved. In fact, this was the perp causing the excessive wind noise with the window.

Upon fixing the streak in the window, I was no longer too scared to get the car tinted - now that I wouldn't screw it up the very same day. Below is a pic.

 

Added LED Daytime running lights (DRLs) and rear tail lights.



"Dectane" style tail lights, see my post about sourcing these from speedstersource for $550 shipped.

I summed up all the back and forth of the LED rear tail lights option for these cars, and found the "DEPO" Taiwanese option the best ones. Speedstersource is also the cheapest way to get them as well, instead of the usual $850 a set.

Install for rear tail lights take only a philips, and you can find it on the board in another thread. I used one of the supplied "resistor bricks" that the lights come with and put it on the light that has my integrated rear fog (driver side) to avoid "check tail lamp" error messages on the dash. The passenger non fog light should be okay to leave as it comes shipped.


Got the DRLs off eBay motors for $500 shipped. They are advertised as "Generation 2" of the DRLs for this car. All the ones available are the same manufacturer, as of this post, so just find the cheapest supplier like I did. I used seller DTMMotors on eBay since he was selling at about 100 less than the rest, at the time.

Removal/install of your Fog/Combo can be found in your owner's manual.

 

AWESOME write ups.
If you were a woman, I would marry you!
Great detail, perfect pictures. + rep points for you

 

You are the man. This thread benefits the entire community. Thanks for making and updating it.

 

WOW, nicely detailed write-up's, glad to have come across this thread.

 

Wow, great thread! Keep it up...love the lights conversion!