2008 Cadillac Escalade Front Driver Side Exterior Door Handle TRQ DHA48617

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This is a 2007 Yukon Denali. This procedure is pretty much similar for Yukon Denali as well as the Sierra Denali, Yukon and Sierra SLT series, and Chevy Silverado, Tahoe, and Suburban LTZ series. As you can see here, our handle broke at the front mounting point, and the chrome is bubbling up. This is the original handle. This is pretty common for these vehicles. Whether you're looking to replace them because they're broken, or maybe you want to upgrade to black handles from chrome handles, you're going to need new handles from 1AAuto.com, a small and regular size flat blade screwdriver, 10mm socket with a ratchet and extension, and you'll need either need a door panel clip tool or you can make a putty knife work to pry the door handle off. If you're doing the driver side, you also may need a pick tool additionally.

Disconnect the battery. You want to open up the driver's door. The hood release lever has a safety latch. Move it to the right, and then lift the hood up. The battery is near the rear of the engine compartment on the passenger side with a 10mm nut on top of the negative battery cable. We'll loosen that 10mm nut, pull the battery cable up and off, and then put it to the side so it won't contact the terminal again.

Open up whichever door you want to remove. There's a little square clip on the door lock that you want to pry out with a small flat blade screwdriver. Then use a small flat blade screwdriver to pry that panel out. Then there's a little panel in behind the door handle that you pry out. This is the same for either front door, and then you'll see there's a 10mm bolt there and two behind the door pull. Use the small flat blade screwdriver, pry out that square clip, pull that up and off, and then use a rag to help protect the paint and pry out the triangle that's at the top of the door. It pulls straight off, and then use a 10mm socket and ratchet with an extension and remove the three bolts. Use a screwdriver and a rag just to protect the door panel. Pry up on the switch panel, work your finger underneath, and pull it straight up. You pull it some, and then pry up in the front. The clips are located right at the front and right at the rear, and the harnesses are all connected with a connector that has this little tab that you press. Pull the connector down and out. You need to release the clips that hold the panel in. I've got a door panel clip tool and a rag again to protect the paint.

Work the panel clip tool underneath and around the clip, and then I'm going to put the screwdriver between the clip and a rag and pry out on the clip tool. You can hear it pop the clip out and I'll just repeat that. I usually try and get the first four on the back side and once you get those, then you can usually work your hand underneath to a point where you can feel where the clip is, and then pull firmly, and you'll release the clips. If your door panel has never been removed before, you'll need to remove the water shield from the door panel. There's a black clip, you can see there, that I'm trying to pry out. There are usually three or four of these on each panel, so you try and pull the clips out, or you can pull on the water shield and either pull the clip out of the same time or pull the water shield from around clip. Again, there's usually three or four of these on each panel. If your door panel has already been off though, a lot of times, they've already been removed. Now, pull the door panel up and out, and it's connected with the door handle cable. Looking in behind, there are couple of tabs that hold the handle cable in to the clip. Release the tabs, and then you can pull the cable out, and then out in the ball like that, and your door panel is separated.

Carefully pull your water shield back, and be careful not to rip or tear it. You'll want to pull it down far enough so that you can reach up in there to access the bolts, as well as sometimes you'll drop a bolt, so you want to be able to reach down into the bottom of the door just to recover anything if you need to. It's held on by two 10mm bolts, so you can see through the hole. There was one there where the arrow points, and then, moving back, there's a plug that covers this hole. Once you take the plug off, you can see the bolt right there, 10mm socket ratchet and extension, and you look in there and remove those two bolts. Now, the front one on my handle is broken, so you're going to see later I try and get it out there, but then I realize that the bolt is just spinning. I'll take the rear one out. Then you can reach right up there and grab a hold of those bolts so they don't fall down.

To remove the handle, you pull it forward a little bit, and you pull the handle out so it comes down and out. Then you just twist it up and off the rod, moving it back and forth, and then angle it up and off the rod. Like I said, the front one on mine, the plastic had broken, so I'm just going to grab hold of the plastic, pull it off the nut, and it's out. On the driver side, you'll run into a little bit of a difference here. Everything up to this point is pretty much the same, but basically on the driver side, the lock cylinder is connected to another rod. You can see that red clip, and you see that rod just popped out of there. It doesn't usually happen that way, but what you can do is if you can get a little screwdriver in there, you can remove that rod from that clip. The other thing that you can do is if you can't get the rod out of the clip, there is a clip that holds the lock cylinder in place, and I just removed the handle the same way.

I'm just showing you if the handle, if your rod's still stuck in there, the clip that I'm removing right now, you can get a pick in there while the handle is still in the door. You get a pick in there and pull the clip off that I'm pulling off right now. Once you pull that clip off, if you pull it off with a pick while the handle is still on the door, then you can slide the lock out and get the handle off.

The original handle on top, our new handle from 1A Auto on the bottom just with the plastic on it. All the armatures is the same and the mounting points are all the same. It's going to fit just like the original.

Install the new handle. To avoid fingerprints, I left the plastic on there, but I make sure I pull it from the mounting surface and then down onto the door latch rod and twist it into place. Then you have to just push the rod down a little bit and put the handle into place. Then, there's a hook more towards the rear that you want to hook in and then slide it back, and you might need to give it a little tap just to get it into place. Now, you can reach in and start the two 10mm bolts that hold the handle in place. 10mm socket and ratchet with extension, and tighten up those two 10mm bolts. Be careful not to over tighten as you could break the handle again. Then put your water shield back in place, and then run a little test to make sure your door is unlocked, close the door and open, and you can that protective plastic.

To reinstall, there are two larger clips at the bottom that you put into the door, and it will support the door panel while you reinstall the cable. Insert the ball of the cable into the handle, and then move it around and clip it into place. Make sure that you pull up all the harnesses through the opening. Then you lift the door panel up and push it back and down onto the window ledge clip. The entire top of the door goes in the clip, and then once you have the window ledge secured, then lock in the clips all the way around. Make sure you pull the door lock up and put the door lock knob back in. Slide it down on there, and then push the clip. Put the mirror insulator back in place. I like to load bolts into the socket and then put them into place. I'll just fast-forward here as I put all three of them in and tighten them up. Put the triangle back in place, the panel behind the door handle, and the panel behind the door pull. All the harnesses are color-coded and they only plug in one way. Re-plug those in, and then put the switch panel back in place. Reconnect your battery, then you should be all good to go. Put the negative battery cable back on the post, and 10mm socket and ratchet, and extension, and tighten it up.

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We're going to actually hit our dome lamp override, which just turns off the dome lamp. Then we're going to start up here at the corner. You can use a plastic trim tool, but I can just get my fingers behind here, pull straight out and off. You want to avoid pulling it this way, because as you can see this broke off in there. It still has two clips left though, so it'll secure fine. Then we're going to remove three other trim panels. And behind the door handle, put a small screwdriver in here, pry the bottom out and bring that out. You can see a 10mm bolt there. Then behind the door pull, use a small screwdriver to pull that out. Two more 10mm bolts are in there. Then your door lock, you want to kind of pull up a little bit and pry with a small flat blade screwdriver. That comes up and off. Make sure you retrieve that little piece if it flies out. If this comes out, just retrieve it and don't put it all the way in. Just put it like that. Additionally, you need to pull up your trim panel, plastic trim tool available on 1AAuto.com and put it in the back and pull up.

Okay, and then work it in at the front as well. You can see there's two clips at the front and rear. If you don't have a trim tool, but you have strong fingernails, you can get it out, and then just pull straight up on front as well. Then there's four harnesses to disconnect and you might have more. If you have more options, just press the tabs and pull out. Use a 10mm socket with ratchet and extension, and remove those three 10 mm bolts. These ones may stay in there after you get them loosened up. And in that case, they'll just fall down, and you can retrieve them after you take the door panel off.

Now, there's a series of clips around the edge. I usually start at the top, pull straight out, and just work your hand down. Pull firmly. Then the bottom and the side, and then door panel can come up and off. And then you'll want to disconnect your door handle, which is a matter of pressing on the tabs. There's two tabs, so press one, pull through, rotate around. Press on the other one. That allows you to move that back, bring it up and around, and your door panel comes off.

We're going to take our window master switch, and we're going to plug it back in so we can put the window up. These plugs here are coded, meaning they have little slots that line up, so they'll only plug in one way because we've only got three plugs, but there's more than three spots. This has some ears here that match up with this connector here. The same thing for this one. It only matches with these, so if you try to put in the wrong ones, it won't fit. You got to find the right. It will slide in. I'm just going to turn the ignition on and put the window up. Then we turn the ignition off. You can unplug this switch again so it's not dangling and in your way. Just put it aside so it doesn't get broken.

Now, to get to the bolts that are on the backside here, we have to pull this water barrier off. It's got some sticky like strip caulk stuff. Just peel it off. It'll just go back on there. If it's really sticky, you can take a razor blade and just cut it as you're pulling it away, but just gently work it off, so you don't rip this foam. For the most part, you can reuse this. It will still be sticky, but you may want to get some new strip caulk to put on here when we replace it, so just be aware of that when you take it off.

The first thing we're going to do before we loosen the outside door handle is to undo it from this lock rod while it's still attached to the car will make it a little bit easier. We'll use a flat headed screwdriver. There's a little lock tab. Just got to kind of push it out and at the same time, and try to pop it off. See if I can get another hand in there just like this. There it is. It's a little tricky, but once you get it, it pops right off, so now that's nice and free. Now we need to get to the two bolts that hold the outside door handle on. There's one in here. There's one underneath this rubber cover. We're just going to use our plastic prying tool to just pop this cap off. Just put that aside so you don't lose it. Then we take our 10 millimeter socket and ratchet, put it through that opening in the door panel. I'm going to start to loosen it. Try not to drop the bolts in there, but door the door panel's pretty wide open if you drop it. Now we're going to do the other 10 millimeter bolt. Now what you want to do with your hand that you're not using with the ratchet is just put it on the outside door handle so it doesn't fall as you loosen it.

To get this door handle out now, we have to slide it to the front, and then lift if out. I may have to go around the backside and help feed it out. It's got another little tab, so if you twist it down, and then you need to feed out. Disconnect it from this arm here. There you go. That's how you remove the door handle.

Now we're going to reinstall the door handle. You start by fishing in the door lock actuator rod. Then you want to connect it to this one. That just pushes over like that. You need to sort of maneuver it in. This you can push, it's spring loaded, to get it to go under there.

Now, remember, there was a hook on the back of this. It kind of has to go to the forward position a little bit and then slide back. That's installed from the outside. Now we need to go to the backside and install the 10 millimeter bolts that hold it on. The torque for the little bolts that hold the door handle on is 53 inch-pounds. If you don't have an inch pound torque wrench, just make sure you tighten them very gently. Use your wrist, not your arm as you tighten them down. As you just feel them to get tight, you should stop, because if you go too far, they will strip out the plastic or crack the plastic.

To put these 10 millimeter bolts back through the door, to help you not drop them into the door while you're trying to feed them in there, you can take a little bit of blue masking tape and just sort of tape them so they stay in there. Just fold that over so it fits through. You just have to fish it in.

See, the hole is basically straight in from this opening. I recommend doing this by hand first to make sure you don't cross thread them. You'll just feel it. Just hold your hand on the outside door handle so you don't push it out, and just start to thread them in. The torque on these is going to be 53 inch pounds, so I'm just going to thread them in as strong as I can by my fingers, and then I'll come back with the torque wrench once I have the other side in. We got the other bolt in. Have to feed it around the window regulator cable. That one feels pretty tight. Now I'm going to take our inch pound torque wrench I've set to 53 inch pounds. That's it. It doesn't take a lot of torque. Now that these bolts are tight, you're going to take that grommet, put it back in the hole. All right, after you reinstall the door handle, you now need to reconnect the door handle actuator rod to latch the actuator assembly. That's just going to slide in here. You just kind of roll it up and over. It will lock down.

All right, now we're ready to install this back on the door handle. Just going to feed our wires through for the door switches and mirror. See the little channel that it was in. You just sort of push it down in.

First, you want to just make sure that your bolts come out and you retrieve them. There are two tabs here that just go right in to the door and rest conveniently so that's supported. Then you can put this up. Make sure you have four harnesses that poke up through the opening, here, or more if you have more options on your truck. Then reconnect your cable, slide the ball in, pull out, and push.

Make sure all your harnesses are up and through. Now that your cable's on, this ridge actually needs to go down into this channel here. So, hit the panel up into place. A little higher, you see it slides down. It should go down even. This should come right up through your lock rod. Then, if you look back in, you can actually see this pin here lines right up, and you can just go right around and lock the pins into place. So we want to be able to take these bolts and put them in. They’re a little bit loose, though. So, if you just take a piece of painter's tape, put it on the head of the bolt, stuff your socket on there, and it stays much better. You can guide it right in and start it out. If the painter's tape does stay behind, it's not a big deal, but tighten it by hand first to make sure it's in, and then tighten it up.

This one is pretty easy to get into place. Put the lockdown on. Snap that in place. This one, the round side goes underneath. Put this into place. Switch panel, these all only go in one way. So, like this one won't plug into there. It won't plug into there. It'll only plug into there. Then this one will only plug into there. This one can go in place. The last one, again, it has three tabs. One of ours is broken. Make sure it goes right straight in, kind of look in behind.

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