as some of you guys may recall, my rear driver's side door got dented pretty bad when some vandals went to town on the BEAST. Well, rather than have some hack job body shop try their best to bondo, sand, paint & prime the door back into place....i just went and got myself another door right off another M5 with the same features....only thing is the entire door card & internals were missing....so tonight im swapping out all that stuff and putting on the new door...progress pics below.


here's the nasty dent again:



Door removed in the garage:




hanging out in the living room swapping the internals:




should be done in no time, wish me luck!


sidenote: this stuff is pretty straight forward, only three bolts hold the whole door on...i just used a socket wrench, no power tools (i dont own any....prolly should invest soon hunh? lol)

 

and a little over an hour later (including a break lol)....


BOOM!

 

does the paint match?

 

I love it when people can get down and dirty on their own cars. For some reason, I can tell you've never done a door swap before but you seem to have already had the "know how" by using common sense. I love to see people doing their own work. now you can take the other door and sell it to someone who will fix it or you can bondo it up yourself, primer it and get it ready for paint. At least you'll get practice and recoupe some money.

 

yup, spot on. same year, same color, same model. i lucked up. thats why i went this route.

 

two be honest, its ideally a two man job. i had to use a bucket and a book to hold the door level while lining up the bolts to attach the new door back on.


and youre right, i had no idea how to do it. i just took apart the B pillar looking for bolts and took my time figuring out what went where. transplanting the internal components was a simple unplug then re-plug job....just remembering what went where...

i want to take it to a junker and see how much they will give me for the door. i mean the glass and the motors are still in tact ya kno?

 

Nice work! That's a way better option then repainting. You might want to keep the motors as spare parts, I've already replaced 1 of mine.

 

Oh so you didnt have to swap regulators or glass? OH MAN that's awesome looooooool. And you did get very. because I paint i can tell you right now that you should play the lotto. depending on where the bmw was assembled will depend on what shade it has of a specific color. for instance.. alpineweiss comes in about 6 shades, silbergrau in about 8 shades and swchartz comes in at least 5 shades. that's why any real BMW paintshop will tell you they make their own paint on premises and they need to blend it. You got real lucky. As far as your original door, it would not be too hard to fix so I'm sure someone will give you at least 70% of the price for it...it's not a bad fix. Total time and cost would be about 3 hours and about $70.

 

dangggggg must have been alot of work! i thought you filed a claim with your insurance company? what happened with that? didnt all of it come under comprehensive?