free of the glass. Now the glass lifts up and comes out of the door.
In photo 4, I have everything that was removed from the door laid out in the same order in which each part was removed. This photograph will help me later when I begin to assemble the door. I add all of the broken and missing parts to the master checklist.
PHOTO 2: Glass removal begins with the driver’s door. I want a photo of the door with all of the mechanisms in place for future reference.
PHOTO 3: Before I can remove the glass from the door, I must remove this tiny plastic knob from the glass. Once removed the glass will lift up and out of the door.
PHOTO 4: Now where did this part go? Photos never forget. Having a photo of everything you take out of the door will be a real help a year from now when you start trying to reassemble it.
PHOTO 5: While broken, this tiny spring is very important to the operation of the door glass. Now is the time to determine why this spring is here and how it works.
Look at photo 5. This is a small spring that I should have found inside the rear glass channel guide. A close inspection of the other side of the channel shows a plastic guide attached to the spring. I was able to determine the exact purpose of this spring only after tearing down the passenger side of the car and looking at that spring assembly.
The spring assembly on the passenger side is still intact and working properly. The purpose of the spring is to allow the plastic guide in photo 6 to gently tuck into an additional plastic guide on the rear run channel, securing the glass and keeping it from vibrating once it is rolled up. This is one of those details that if missed would cause the glass not to fit and work like it should once the door is reassembled.
Remove Vent Glass
I disassemble the vent glass assembly next. I note an L-shaped bracket. This is the lower support bracket designed to hold the front door glass run channel on the vent glass assembly in place. Welding will be required to reattach it to the vent glass assembly. I’ll do that at a later time. Note: The broken support bracket could have contributed to the poor operation of the door glass.
Notice the small pin located at the center bottom of the vent glass. Nearly all vent glass assemblies use a pin of some sort to hold the glass assembly in place within the vent glass frame. The pin must be removed for the glass to lift up and out of the vent glass assembly. A small pair of Vise-Grip brand pliers does the trick with ease. With the pin removed, I can remove the glass pivot screw—usually located about midway up the leading edge of the glass—to free the glass from the assembly. I slide the glass up and out of the vent glass assembly and store it away.
To polish the assembly, which I will do later, the weather stripping must be removed. The weather strip is set into a channel around the inside of the frame assembly. Gently pry it out using a small flat-bladed screwdriver.
Remove Quarter Glass
Note: Before disassembling the quarter glass unit, I recommend you operate and study the workings of the assembly to get a firm grasp on how the unit works. Unlike most door glass regulators, whose function is to move the glass straight up or straight down, most quarter glass regulators are designed to move the glass forward and up, then backward and down. An intricate maze of guides, runners, and channels are required for the unit to work properly. Having even a minimal grasp on how the unit works will help immensely when you are ready to reinstall it.
I begin removal by rolling the glass partially down and looking through the access ports for two bolts located near the bottom of the glass. I remove these bolts and lift the glass up and out of the quarter structure.
With the glass safely removed, I begin teardown of the regulator assembly by removing all of the bolts holding the assembly to the inner quarter structure. The regulator assembly is a two-part unit consisting of a double arm regulator and a channel support bracket. The channel support bracket has a long forward glass run channel as well as a short rearward glass run channel attached to it. I remove the forward channel first by unbolting it and sliding it up and out of the window opening. Then I remove the short rearward channel via one of the access holes on the inner structure of the quarter.
I free the regulator of the channel support bracket by sliding the rollers out of the bracket. Then I remove the bracket itself from the quarter glass cavity the same way I removed the glass, up and out the top of the glass cavity. The regulator can now come out through the large access hole located near the bottom of the inner quarter structure. But the keeper you see in the center of photo 17 holds the regulator to the channel support bracket and needs to be removed before either the channel support bracket or the regulator can come out of the vehicle.
Next, I remove the window seal weather strips and the belt moldings. The outer seal strips are clipped like the seal strips are on the doors and can be removed in the same manner. The quarter belt moldings are attached with Phillips head screws instead of the spring clips used to attach the door belt moldings.
Remove Back Glass
I know I have a problem when I attempt to remove the reveal moldings with my reveal molding tool, and they refuse to simply pop off the glass.
After an hour of gentle persuasion, careful prying, and delicate prodding, I finally get the moldings off. I find household silicone adhesive packed underneath all of the moldings (which explains why the moldings were so difficult to remove) and precious few of the actual retainer clips that should be holding the moldings in place. I do find one retainer clip worth saving. I’ll use it for comparison later on when I’m ready to purchase new ones.
In body shop terms, the back glass in the Charger is considered to be soft set, meaning a soft rubber compound was used to install the glass way back when the car was manufactured. That was before the rust worms ate into the deck lid filler panel and some previous owner tried to seal the holes with silicone, house caulk, and what appears to be concrete. This presents a dilemma in that I have to remove all of these various sealing attempts from the glass flange area before I can successfully remove the glass. In real time I spend about two and a half hours cleaning out the flange area around the glass using a small flat-bladed screwdriver, a few dozen safety razors, and a soft brush.
PHOTO 6: The spring in Photo 5 is attached to this plastic wedge piece found on the opposite side of the glass run channel guide. The plastic piece is designed to slide a distance of ½ inch along the guide and is spring loaded up.
PHOTO 7: Removing the glass from the passenger side of the Charger gives us a better idea of how the spring is mounted. If you look inside the guide channel, you can see the travel slot for the plastic wedge. The function of the wedge is to stabilize the glass from vibrating when it is rolled up.
PHOTO 8: With all of the bolts removed, the vent glass assembly slides back then lifts up and out of the door.
