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So this was a nightmare install for me and I wanted to share my experience for anyone else about these bastards.
As everyone says, the only hard part is getting the damned door latch bolts out, which are glued in with blue loctite.
I bought an impact driver like in op's instructions just for this job. It did absolutely nothing. Maybe I suck using it, I don't know, but I couldn't do shit with it. I hammered away at that driver and got absolutely nothing.
I ended up putting the bits in my electric impact wrench and trying to get them off that way.
It was partially successful. I managed to get the first three bolts out, but only by destroying all 3 of my Phillips head impact screwdriver bit.
I was left with one bolt still in and had to improvise. I tried hammering the flat head bits into the bolt, then using the impact driver, and nothing.
Eventually I just bought the biggest phillips screw driver I could find, attached some vice grips for leverage, and just muscled that bitch out.
If I had to do it over again, I would have just done this from the beginning.
I also had issues tightening the replacement torx bolts since the loctite was in the grooves. It takes a lot of torque to get passed all the loctite in the threads.
If you run into problems like I did, some words of wisdom:
- Don't use the impact wrench, it's way too much torque and if you're lucky, you'll just destroy your bit and bolt while loosening it. If you're unlucky, you'll accomplish nothing and have a really good chance of slipping and scuffing your paint.
- If you have just one bolt stuck, put the microfiber towel under the hanging old bracket so you don't mess up your paint while you work the last bolt. I failed to do this and now have some unslightly scuffs near my new TRD bling.
- If you have problems with door alignment after install, don't worry. You can almost certainly fix it. The piece of metal that you screw the torx bolts into that's inside the door is pretty flexible; it's easy to adjust it (I used a screwdriver in the door latch to twist it back to shape after I deformed it trying to get those loctite bolts out). Also, make sure that the new latch is pushed as far into the frame (towards the interior) as possible when you tighten it down, if it's sitting further out, it may make your doors not flush.
Good luck, the good news is it's a great install and if you know anything about how this car feels without them the improvement is obvious with hard cornering, MUCH STIFFER.
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