98 Tahoe door panel dragging suddenly

Disclaimer: Links on this page pointing to Amazon, eBay and other sites may include affiliate code. If you click them and make a purchase, we may earn a small commission.

youngbuck007

TYF Newbie
Joined
Feb 25, 2014
Posts
6
Reaction score
5
I'm pulling my hair out (what's left of it anyway). I bought a 1998 2 door Tahoe LT about 2 years ago. It's got 235k miles on it now and I know it has some old age quirks but learn to either fix or live with them as they come up. Well, out of nowhere the passenger door got really hard to open, I mean REALLY hard. Finally I pulled it so hard from the outside that it opened up. Upon inspection, the door panel was dragging/compressed against the interior plastic trim surrounding the door. Up until this point it was very easy to open/close the door with no issues. I can still shut the door simply enough, and the reveals around the door all seem to look good. The door panel lines up exactly where it is supposed to on the door body. All the interior pieces that the panel is rubbing against seem to be in the proper position as well. I've inspected the hinge pins and they look like new, when I play with the door there is zero sag. As I've opened/closed it a few times the door panel is starting to crack up at the bottom where it is catching. It really makes no sense, and I'm not sure if anyone here is going to even be able to help but at least I can vent haha!
 
OP
OP
Y

youngbuck007

TYF Newbie
Joined
Feb 25, 2014
Posts
6
Reaction score
5
Okay I've taken the door panel off, so obviously now the door opens and closes just fine because before the panel itself is what was grabbing the interior trim and catching. I think what may have happened is that the condition was such a tight fit, and at some point a couple of the plastic push-pins at the bottom of the door that hold the panel to the door may have gotten just slightly loose. This caused just enough of the panel to sag and drag on the interior jamb. Those are now broken, and the panel itself has already cracked. I'm going to shop for a replacement panel and install, cross my fingers that was it. If so that will be great, but still can't believe how tight the tolerance would be to keep this from happening.
 

east302

Full Access Member
Joined
Dec 21, 2016
Posts
1,555
Reaction score
1,379
Location
Mississippi
That is strange, the panel really just hangs on there and has the metal bracket near the armrest to hold it up. Is the sill plate on the floor bulging up?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

fastpat

Full Access Member
Joined
Jun 2, 2018
Posts
163
Reaction score
70
Location
Upcountry South Carolina
With that many miles, my first guess is worn door hinge pins. They're cheap to replace and if that doesn't fix your issue, no problem, you've fixed something that would become a problem in the future.
 
OP
OP
Y

youngbuck007

TYF Newbie
Joined
Feb 25, 2014
Posts
6
Reaction score
5
With that many miles, my first guess is worn door hinge pins. They're cheap to replace and if that doesn't fix your issue, no problem, you've fixed something that would become a problem in the future.

Hinge pins are actually great, I believe they must have been replaced by a PO at some point. I did find a matching door panel at the JY and installed it...door works great now. I don't know why my old panel was dragging and getting hung up on the sill but it was. Either way, glad it was a relatively easy fix!
 

Forum statistics

Threads
128,786
Posts
1,805,429
Members
91,766
Latest member
GeorgeC
Top