When I originally tore out the car's interior, I removed everything from the doors that was necessary in order to take off the vinyl door panels. Last night I went back to the doors to remove the mechanical parts that remained, including the glass, door handles, and locking mechanism. There are a lot of moving parts involved, but it isn't that difficult to get everything if you stay organized and take it one step at a time.
Here is what the doors looked like after the interior was removed.
The first step was to remove the glass. There is a triangular fixed vent window in front of the door window, which is easiest to remove with the window in the "up" position.
There are these round pins on the outside of the door that help to hold the vent windows in place. I removed them with a 5/16" wrench. The rubber trim on the outside of the car, for both the vent window and the car window, are a friction fit
[edit: I was informed that these pieces are not a "friction fit" and that I actually tore them when removing them the way I did. I took a second look and it's not clear to me how I could have salvaged them, but learn from my mistake and do not just tear them off--they are expensive to replace! ] so I simply pulled those pieces out.
There are two upper screws that hold the vent assembly in place; I removed these with a #3 Phillips head screwdriver. One of the screws goes through the black bracket into the body and the other goes through the body into the vent piece.
There is one more screw down low, recessed in the car door. It is found beneath the window crank. I removed this final screw and the vent window pulled out the top of the door.
To remove the car window, I removed two Phillips head screws that anchor the scissors-like opening mechanism in place below the window. Also, there is a plastic block with a screw that attaches the opening mechanism to the bottom of the window glass. I removed the screw and slide the block free from its channel.
After the plastic piece was free, I was able to slide the window-opening mechanism off the bracket on the bottom of the glass and slide the glass out of the door. The two lower screws held a bracket in place on the inside of the door.
Next I removed the interior door handle. There are two small Phillips head screws that attach it to the body. The handle has a loop that a rod hooks into; the rod drives the latch mechanism at the rear of the door.
In order to extract the mechanism that opens and closes the window, I removed the four remaining Phillips head screws located around the window crank. They were pretty tight. Then I pulled out the mechanism.
At this point I removed the driver's side mirror. Mine was attached with a bolt through the car's body. Located inside the door was a 12mm nut.
On the inside of the rear edge of the door there is a channel in which the window glass rides. There are two screws on the outside/back of the door that hold this channel in place. I removed those screws and pulled out the channel.
The catch plate for the door is mounted on the rear of the door as well. I removed the three Phillips head flush screws and dropped that piece into the door.
I then went after the door latching and locking mechanism. It runs from the door handle back to the latch plate and also up to the key lock and the pull-up lock at the top of the door. At this point, because everything else was already disconnected, I needed to only free the mechanism from the door's key lock. A cotter-pin holds the mechanism to the lock tumbler. I pulled off the pin and rotated the mechanism off the tumbler.
Then I pulled out the entire mechanism in one piece.
Finally I removed the exterior chrome door handle. Two 3/8" nuts on the inside of the door hold it in place. With those removed I was able to pull the handles off the door.
Now the doors are shells. There was no rust-proofing inside the doors, just bare metal, and I saw a lot of surface rust inside. I will clean up all the mechanical pieces and send some pieces out for re-chroming.
: 4:21 PM