The subject of dew wipe replacement comes up from time to time, mostly "How do I get those @#$@# two middle screws out?!?!"
Well, you can buy the special tool and that will work, but it's still a PITA to do. I do mine by taking the glass loose and lifting it, as others have said, but I haven't seen a summary or thread with pictures on how to do it. Since I just did a set last weekend, I took pictures and I'll go through it step by step.
The first thing you have to do is take the inner door panel off. Take out the screws that hole the armrest on and the screws holding on the plastic trim plate around the door opener. If you have manual windows, you'll also have to take the window crank off. There's s special tool that only costs a couple of bucks that you can buy from Autozone/Pepboys, O'Reilley's, etc., but you can also get the little clip out of there with a small screwdrive if you're patient. Once you get the inner panel off, this is what you'll see.
I've marked with red the various screws and bolts you're going to be dealing with. All of them are either phillips head screws or need a 10mm socket.
The first thing I like to do is take both the front and back rubber end caps off to gain access to everything and allow the glass to move front and back. I'm not sure the front removal is absolutely necessary (I had mine off already) but IIRC it makes access to the bolts holding the mirror on easier (if not the only way possible). So go ahead and take the screws out and remove the end caps (rear cap is in the picture)
Next I like to take the mirrors off. The mirror mounting studs go through the dew wipe so they need to be removed. Take off the two nuts inside the door panel. I like to tie the mirrors up so they aren't hanging by the wires or manual control cable in the case of the driver's side manual mirror. Since this was on the Finale Roadster, and it doesn't mount the mirrors like the stock Fiero, they were already off and aren't shown, but I've highlighted their approximate location in red on the picture of the door panel.
With the window completely down, you can get to the rear and the front two screws on the dew wipe with your phillips screwdriver. These are the easy ones. Go ahead and take them out now. Next you need to remove the upper window stops. These keep the window from going up too high. Before you take any of the 10mm bolts out of the door, mark around them with a Sharpie so you can put them back where they were. Take out both the front and the rear upper window stops.
Front:
Rear:
At this point you can roll the window up. Don't go WAY up at this tie, just to where it would about normally be. Now take the four bolts out that hold the guide track to the door. There are two at the top and two at the bottom. Again, mark them before you remove them so the track can go back in the same location it was.
Upper:
Lower:
With the guide track loose, you can go ahead and roll the window up as high as it can possibly go. You'll notice it goes up significantly higher than it did before. I like to take the track off at this point and lay it in the bottom of the door. It will usually fall off sooner or later anyway, so I just take it off right away. You can take it out if you want and clean it up, lubing it with your favorite grease. Opinions vary on that, but I use a graphite lube on mine.
(Continued in the next post due to number of image constraints)
John Stricker
[This message has been edited by jstricker (edited 05-21-2006).]
With the window all the way up, the glass will just be high enough (normally) to be able to get to the middle screw in the dew wipe. You MIGHT have to GENTLY lift up a bit with a flat screwdriver to get enough clearance to get the screw out. Usually not, but some go higher than others.
You can see the clearance is tight here, but it will fit. I did have to lift on the glass on this one. If you do, BE CAREFUL AND BE GENTLE. The glass is tempered safety glass and when it breaks, it's usually into a million little pieces that ruins your whole day, so put away the gorilla arms and use a little finesse.
When you have the middle screw out, you can move to the PITA screw to the rear, that is the second one from the back. For this one, you have to slide the window BACK on the regulator arms. There is a point at which you will gain access to the screw, again you might have to help lift a little bit with a screwdriver on the glass, but you should have enough clearance.
In the picture you can see how the glass is sloped just giving you enough room to get to the screw and showing why you have to move the glass to the rear.
Reassembly is the reverse of assembly. I do like to change the screws to a conventional, self tapping hex screw. They are small enough they will clear everything and the hex head is much easier to deal with if you have a magnetic nut driver or socket when you put them back in. These are the screws I'm talking about.
If you're worried about how they look, they are stainless so they won't rust and you can't see them for the most part anyway with the inner dew wipe on.
I like to start by slipping the mirror back on and just putting the nuts on finger tight, then I use a pick or very small phillips screwdriver to line up the middle screw with the hole and start the second to the back one. Put the middle screw in once you get the first one started and tighten them up. Now roll the window back down just a little, slip your cleaned and lubed track back in the guide and put it back in place. Roll your window down and tighten your mirror up, put the front two and back screw in, replace the window up stops, and put your inner door panel back on. All done.
Once the inner door panel is off, I can replace a dew wipe in less than 15 minutes normally, unless some screws have trashed heads or one twists off, but that's pretty rare as the screws from GM are usually stainless (but I've seen some rusted so they must not all be stainless).
Hope this helps someone out.
John Stricker
[This message has been edited by jstricker (edited 05-21-2006).]
Funny you should post this Mr. Stricker. I just did the passenger dew wipe on my Indy, last Saturday, and was planning to take pictures, as I did the driver side in the near future. Kind of saves me the trouble, as I did it pretty much exactly as you did here. It took me a little longer, as I was looking at options as I went, but this process, turned out to be the easiest/fastest. If you guys don't have a magnetic tipped phillips screwdriver to put the factory screws back in, may I suggest a little grease, peanut butter, or even silicon, to hold the screw to the driver as you reinstall. You will not be able to get your fingers in there to hold it. At least I wouldn't come close to getting mine in there. Mine still had the vapor barrier paper on it also. I cut it close to the brackets for the handle. I put it back on, and there was enought of the sticky stuff to hold it in place, but I put a couple pieces of tape on, for good measure. One more thing, when the outer dew wipe is off, that is the time to replace either of the felt covered window guides, that rest on the inside of the glass, under the inner dew wipe. You have JUST enough room, with the outer wipe out of the way, to push the glass out far enough, to fish them out. I only replced the front one, as the rear one looked fine. Just a note to pass along.
I forgot to mention the vapor barrier. As you can see, I took mine completely out and am going to replace it with dynamat as I think that gives the door a more solid sound when it closes. The Finale door panels have a much larger air volume and sound pretty "cheap" due to the resonance when you shut the doors because of that unless you use the dynamat. Anything that will hold the screws on the end of the drive is not nice, it's a necessity because as you pointed out, you aren't getting your hands up in there. That's why I prefer the self tapping screws with a hex head because they are much more secure going back in place in the driver. They are a very tight fit under the glass, though, and in fact may not actually have enough room to get them in a few doors. The amount the glass goes up varies from car to car. Some give you all kinds of room, others like the one pictured, have just barely enough.
John Stricker
quote
Originally posted by Lambo nut:
Funny you should post this Mr. Stricker. I just did the passenger dew wipe on my Indy, last Saturday, and was planning to take pictures, as I did the driver side in the near future. Kind of saves me the trouble, as I did it pretty much exactly as you did here. It took me a little longer, as I was looking at options as I went, but this process, turned out to be the easiest/fastest. If you guys don't have a magnetic tipped phillips screwdriver to put the factory screws back in, may I suggest a little grease, peanut butter, or even silicon, to hold the screw to the driver as you reinstall. You will not be able to get your fingers in there to hold it. At least I wouldn't come close to getting mine in there. Mine still had the vapor barrier paper on it also. I cut it close to the brackets for the handle. I put it back on, and there was enought of the sticky stuff to hold it in place, but I put a couple pieces of tape on, for good measure. One more thing, when the outer dew wipe is off, that is the time to replace either of the felt covered window guides, that rest on the inside of the glass, under the inner dew wipe. You have JUST enough room, with the outer wipe out of the way, to push the glass out far enough, to fish them out. I only replced the front one, as the rear one looked fine. Just a note to pass along.
I've done it this way and I've done it with the special tool. This way is so much easier. One of the Fiero clubs does have instructions for this on their website but you did a better job of explaining it. Thanks for taking the effort.
[This message has been edited by sanderson (edited 02-12-2006).]
Anything that will hold the screws on the end of the drive is not nice, it's a necessity because as you pointed out, you aren't getting your hands up in there. That's why I prefer the self tapping screws with a hex head because they are much more secure going back in place in the driver. They are a very tight fit under the glass, though, and in fact may not actually have enough room to get them in a few doors. The amount the glass goes up varies from car to car. Some give you all kinds of room, others like the one pictured, have just barely enough.
John Stricker
Yes, clearance was darn tight. I had to tilt the screwdriver, with the srew on it, up a little, under the glass, then when I straightned it out to drive it home, the #2 screwdriver shank was up against the bottom of the glass. I might have had more fun trying the hex driver, and screws!
I set out to do this this evening and saw the screws and said wtf! I knew I would find an answer here. Thank you many times over for going to all this trouble. Daniel
Thanks John for the good job. I did mine this way and made the mistake of putting the end screws first, then could not get the middle screw in. So I could see the problem as the middle hole is round and the others are slotted. Don
You can put the end screws in first, Don, just don't tighten them up! (But I'm guessing you figured that one out on your own, huh? )
John Stricker
quote
Originally posted by ka4nkf:
Thanks John for the good job. I did mine this way and made the mistake of putting the end screws first, then could not get the middle screw in. So I could see the problem as the middle hole is round and the others are slotted. Don
You can also chisel them out by, if looking at a bolt on its profile you would strike the bolt head not directly on top but a bit to the side causing it to turn then when its loose you can get some needle nose pliers to finish the job. Obviously you would only do this if you were going to replace the bolt anyways.
I'd ordered my new dew wipes before Daytona and had been procrastinating and finding all kinds of excuses why I did not want to tackle this project. LOL
Thanks to your excellent "how to" I feel alot better about it.
I'll be sure to let you know how it goes once I get to it. hehe (Maybe this week..... )
~Tress
------------------ I may not know alot about cars...but I make a Fiero look good!
John, you get a big plus from me on this one...excellent writeup. I just wish I'd seen it BEFORE I went thru the massive PITA yesterday of getting the old screws out with Rodney's tool. It's a good tool, but the shaft is about 5 mm too short. If I had it to do over again (before reading this writeup) I'd be half tempted to knock out the damned glass, replace the wipes, and take it to a glass shop afterward; it's that big a pain. Oh, and thanks for the tip on replacing the screws with hex head. It'll make putting it back together MUCH easier. (I'm in the process of painting the car; the replacement $&#%@! dew wipes will go back on once that's done.)
[This message has been edited by Vonov (edited 05-04-2006).]
i have the advantage here being that my glass was already knocked out cause some one needed my sound system more than i did. gonna do all this while its easy, than tackle the passanger side later.
right now im looking for the thread on putting in a window, i know there has to be one! ------------------ 1987 Pontiac Fiero GT, 145,500 miles!decklid window, silver guages. rear ended someone, and now the rebuilding starts! saving for a norms front clip! More pics of my 87 GT can be found here 1985 Pontiac Fiero 2m4 auto, 221K miles and counting <-my first car, and i still cant get rid of her! 2002 Toyota Celica GT, 5-speed, 42K miles <-What a hunk of crap!
A 4 year olds knowledge of science: No matter how much jello you put into a swimming pool you still can't walk on water.
[This message has been edited by tednelson83 (edited 05-19-2006).]
I might be way out of line here or missed something in the translation but I just did the drivers door on my 88 GT and had no problem at all. I'm going to do the other side as soon as I get some other parts to freshen up that side also. Except the two HUGE pop rivets that hold the window in the channel, the job was pretty much straight forward. Had to buy a new HUGE pop rivet gun for them. All I did was take the window out of the channel and then everything is right in front of God and everybody. Didn't time myself as I spent a lot of time polishing the scratches on the glass left by the previous owner when he DIDN'T change the dew wipes and upper felt guides in time. But every job, if done right, takes time. By removing the glass you can also get to all the moving parts and felts guides inside while the door is apart. And it really didn't take THAT much time. The pop rivits were the only hassle. Any body want to rent my new HUGE pop rivet gun?
If you follow the instructions and all you need is to change the dew wipes, you don't need to remove the pop rivets. The pop rivets are 1/4" and if you do remove them can be replaced with 1/4" machine screws, IIRC.
John Stricker
quote
Originally posted by buellfooll:
I might be way out of line here or missed something in the translation but I just did the drivers door on my 88 GT and had no problem at all. I'm going to do the other side as soon as I get some other parts to freshen up that side also. Except the two HUGE pop rivets that hold the window in the channel, the job was pretty much straight forward. Had to buy a new HUGE pop rivet gun for them. All I did was take the window out of the channel and then everything is right in front of God and everybody. Didn't time myself as I spent a lot of time polishing the scratches on the glass left by the previous owner when he DIDN'T change the dew wipes and upper felt guides in time. But every job, if done right, takes time. By removing the glass you can also get to all the moving parts and felts guides inside while the door is apart. And it really didn't take THAT much time. The pop rivits were the only hassle. Any body want to rent my new HUGE pop rivet gun?
The only problem I had was with the center screw holding the wipe in place. I just couldn't get the glass to move enough to get at it. For that I took a little driver bit and ground it down to a bit more than half a cm, than welded it to a 1/4 inch wrench that was also ground down thinner. It worked fine.
Just did it, excellant method. One word of warning however. IF you have had a window replaced with an aftermarket one (PO did in my case) you may find that the bottom curve does not go up high enough to allow access to both the screws, the rear one in particular. on the other side, it was done in 20 minutes, it had the original stock glass.
Excellent write up, my only change is that when I put the dew wipes back in, I leave out the two center screws. They are so not needed, and the next person who changes them will thank you.
I just wanted to add that you do NOT have to loosen the tracks. All you have to do is remove the 2 window stops (the L shape brackets - 10 mm socket).
With the stops removed you can roll the window up high enough to clear the center screws - if not, you can pull up on the rear of the window and pop it out of the track to give the extra clearance.
First you use wood shingles to give you some space between the outside skin and the window then apply protective tape on the glass , you take aviation snip and cut the old dew around an inch and a half both side of the screw and using that as wing nut the screws being rusted to the piece remaining will come out very easely . Went good for me for the two dew wipes. This is after having removed the inside pieces on the door .I never had to remove a glass or loosen them doing this
But every tricks being written above are good too Everybody go is own way and when thightening the mirror back don't thighten them too much it's gonna make a wave in the skin around them look awful had to loosen them a bit after .
[This message has been edited by Robert 2 (edited 10-31-2008).]
Bump for a Great write up, + for you jstricker this would have taken me a long time to figure out on my own and i probably would have eneded up pulling the glass.
i did have to loosen my track because the front plastic glass mount was hitting the outer dew wipe and would not go up any farther. I had to completely loosen the track and then shove the glass back in the door to get it to go up that last bit, i have power windows so maybe that is a little different.
thanks again for the write-up, it only took me a little over 45min to do my drivers door. I have to hunt down a passengers side outer dew wipe and do that now.
jstricker Thanks for the excellent write up. I took about an hour to change my driver's side dew wipe following your directions. I set my laptop on the workbench and followed your instructions step by step.
During the process you mention "I like to tie the mirrors up so they aren't hanging by the wires " I found that by pulling a couple of inches of the wire cable through the opening there is a plug that can be disconnected so that nothing has to hang by the wire.
[This message has been edited by Tinkrr (edited 08-27-2007).]
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