Porsche Boxster Door Swap

My wife has a older 1998 Porsche Boxster. I don't know or care what the Porsche number they call it is, all I know is someone backed into the door and broke the window glass from the crunch in the door. Checking around for prices at Pelican Parts I decided that it's not worth the cost to fix. Than someone mentioned to try EBAY, and low and behold I found a complete door (less door panel, and airbag stuff) for about $350 Shipped and in the correct color. So seems like the way to go. I'll just swap everything out of the old door to the new and done. Well as you might expect nothing goes as planned. The job was relatively simple once I acquired the special XZN Sockets (I picked up a set from Amazon). One other tool that I first laughed at, but keeps coming in handy is the Leslie Plastic Fastener Remover, which make it easy to remove snaps and such for the wiring harness. It seems that precision German engineering includes using every type of fastener known to man. I pulled out Allen bolts, Hex Bolts, Phillips screws, XZN and Torx. The XZN were the most annoying as I couldn't really understand why they just didn't use Torx unless it was a German Automotive Union states that in their contracts they must install at least 3 XZN bolts into the door. At least the tool set was not too pricey, but the plan is to not use it again if you get my meaning... The pages that follow show the removal and install process. About the only glitch in the swap was a Porsche component change on the door pull cable assembly. They came up with a new style that snaps differently to the door, and no way to make the new door work with the old door panel because of that. SO, I had to also pull the door latch which wasn't too bad. Thinking that was the end of the problem I looked and noticed that this door didn't have a speaker in it. Hmm, not speaker, so no wiring harness for the speaker that was in the existing door, so now had to swap out the wiring harness too. All in a days work. Overall not a bad project, take lots of pictures and expect to break something plastic while removing it... "Viel Glück!" as they say. This would be similar to the Cayman and maybe other Porsches of the era, your Kilometers may vary.

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