05 Bentley GT Door panel?

OK I got a good one for tomorrow morning. An 05 Bentley GT with a key stuck in the drivers door lock.

I took a quick look at it this afternoon, but could only find 2 screws at the bottom of the panel. Looks like the nearest dealer is 100 miles away.

Anyone have any actual knowledge where the hidden screws may be hiding?

Reply to
Roger Shoaf
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OK the Bentley is done, although not to my satisfaction a reasonable compromise was reached. The key had camed over due to an unknown cause. I did not derive the cause, because I had a great deal of concern that with the nearest dealer being 100 miles away, should I have invested the time to find the cause of the problem most likely something will be broken, and I would have to reassemble the broken pieces and send the car away to be repaired elsewhere anyway so I felt that the odds were not good.

The key had been turned beyond the limits and could not be coaxed back from the outside. At first I had suspected a bent bit of linkage, but I was not sure.

I had the car first thing in the morning, and as I could find no information, I sought to coax the secrets out of the door so I could see what I could do to disassemble it.

It is a little intimidating working blind on a car that cost more than my home, and is owned by someone that is very fussy about there wheels. But I undertook the task anyway.

Upon careful inspection I discovered a rather thick plastic cover under the pull for inside door release. there is a small notch on the forward edge where one may pry with a small screwdriver. Under this there is three Torx screws.

In looking at the panel there was still more, so I felt, wiggled and prodded and slowly eliminated each suspected area. What was left was the control panel for the windows.

Here the switch was sunken into the fragile butter soft leather, and I suspected that the correct method was NOT going to be prying it out of the hole. I noted that the panel was set into a separate piece and when I manipulated this I got a wiggle. I was able to pop this off from the rear and the whole switch assembly came free.

Under here there were two more Torx screws.

There are two exposed screws on the underside of the panel, and there are 4 panel clips.

As gentile as I could be, I broke two of the clips. They evidently expect failure on disassembly as they have a design for the clips that I have not seen before. The clip itself is snapped into a "clip carrier" that is snapped into the panel itself. It appears that the "clip carrier" is designed to fail before the connection to the panel itself allowing the replacement of the carrier and avoiding damage to the panel.

The panel is one piece and heavy. I played hell to figure out the connectors for the wires that needed to be unplugged as one of them was about a 22 pin connector that had a small lever device that slid the plug from the connector.

The single linkage was a cable with a simple open hook to the door pull.

With the panel off and set aside, now the steel inside panel was held in place with obvious 10 mm hex head cap screws. When these were removed the panel was gently pried away (Just gasket stick.) and now the real fun came in.

When the inner steel panel was removed, there were two flexible shafts that actuated the window regulation, that were attached to the motor and several wires were running to the outer door handle and latch.

It was difficult to feel for how to remove the connectors so I removed the two Torx screws holding the latch to the door. With the latch loose, I was then able to wiggle the key and get it to return to the removal position. Thinking that all was well, I reattached the latch and tried to turn the key. It camed over and stuck. Rats.

I again removed the latch and freed the key. I stopped and weighed my options. I concluded that the odds were long that I could solve the customers actual problem without parts and a factory manual, yet I have removed his stuck key, and he can lock and unlock his car with the remote. I felt it best to return the car to him usable, but with the cause of the problem left unresolved. (I suppose that this is an admission that I am way out of my league, but I hate to ever admit that. :>)

Replacing the panel was fun fun fun. I had removed the window motor from the inside panel thinking that this would free the inner panel so I could see and feel better, and upon reassembly It seems that I screwed up the timing and I had to futz with it to get the window to function properly.

The two screws at the bottom and one of the ones under the switch assembly are screwed into sheet metal tabs that easily bend out of position when you are fighting with the heavy panel. I had a bit of a problem coaxing the last one into place as it had bent down and the screw could not grab. After a concession to frustration was made buy the diligent application of some of my magic words, and sitting calmly for a moment and sucking in the nicotine laden smoke that constricts my veins and allows me a moment of reflection, I solved this by reaching in with a stiff wire hook and simply pulling up the bent tab so the screw could catch.

Next Bentley I see that needs to have the panel pulled is probably going to get a pass, or an extremely high, scare them off kind of price estimate.

Reply to
Roger Shoaf

Quote them $1000.00. If they have a Bentley they are use to paying those kind of prices for pretty much any thing it needs.

Reply to
Steve

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