Better Beaters - Building Cars and Daily Drivers

 Fixing the loose driver's armrest/door pull on my F150.

You can see the gap that opens up when I pull
on the armrest/door pull.

The driver's armrest/door pull of my F150 was loose at the front. As you can see, a gap opens up when I pull on it. Something had broken or come loose inside the door panel. I didn't want to break the remaining portion of the arm rest. I had put off the job for several months. just being careful when closing the door. Finally I decided to do something about it. I checked out a couple of videos on how to remove the door panel. This job calls for some very small sockets or nut drivers. 10 mm will be the biggest size needed. 

I bought this set of nylon trim removal tools at Harbor freight. These will not scratch the finish of the door frame. You can use regular screw drivers, but I'd wrap the tips in some kind of tape. 

First of all, carefully pry one side of the speaker grille off.

Remove the four screws holding the speaker in place and disconnect the speaker wire plug. These are very small bolt heads.

You only need to remove the two bottom nylon inserts. Work them out gently with a needle nose pliers. The video I watched said to remove all of them, but that's not necessary. 

The video also said to pry the crank knob off before you unsnap the plastic covering. All you need to do is to unsnap the cover off at the back end, and rotate it out of the way. You will see a small hole with a screw inside.

It takes a small torx head screwdriver. I bought this set at, where else? Harbor Freight. It contains torx bits, some small sockets, and a set of pozi force screwdriver bits. The pozi force screws look like Phillips head screws, but are a bit different.

Under the door release lever you'll see a small "door." Remove that by partying it off, then remove the two ten mm bolts.

There are two very small bolts holding the bottom of the panel on, take those off. Keep all the bolts separated so that you don't confuse them.

The door release lever unit is just snapped in, carefully pry it loose. There's no need to remove the assembly from the cable, it will easily fit through the opening.

Go ahead and unscrew the lock knob. To remove the panel do not try to pry it off! It won't come off and you'll break something! Bump it up by striking it up with your palm on the bottom edge, under the door pockets. The hooks on the back of the panel need to disengage before you can remove the panel.

This is the hook that holds the front section of the arm rest to the metal door frame. Those two screws go into the back of the arm rest. Remove these and keep them in order these bolts are not all identical.

These four bolts hold the back part of the arm rest on. Note: The two bottom bolts are a bit longer. Once I had the armrest free I could see that the front bolts had broken the plastic pedestal that they screwed into. That's why the front end was loose. The bottom of the pedestal was still intact, a set of longer screws should reach the intact portion and secure the arm rest. I have a large collection of miscellaneous screws that I've accumulated over the years. I looked through my collection and came up with these. 

You can see the intact pedestals on the front of this replacement arm rest. I've never had any success trying to glue the broken plastic parts back in place, This OEM replacement armrest costs over 90.00, a good reason to keep your eyes open for replacement when you're in the wrecking yards.

These screws are almost an inch longer and should do the trick. I screwed them through the black backing hook bracket and into the arm rest. I could feel them bite into the remaining pedestal and tighten up. Don't over tighten them. That's good advice for this entire job. All the crews tighten into plastic, so just snug them up.

Assembly is reverse of disassembly.  

Before you replace the speaker grille, be sure to check that the speaker wire is connected securely and the speaker works.

How long will this repair last?

Who knows?  The original armrest stayed intact for 17 years. If it breaks again, it can be repaired by adding a metal plate that is attached to the armrest on the inside edge. The repair won't be unnoticed, but could be neatly handled. I think that the best option is to try to secure a replacement from a wrecking yard while you are there. 

I have several little repairs on my truck lined up for the near future, and will cover them in future posts.