How to Replace Front Exterior Door Handle 2005-11 Honda Civic

Hi, I’m Mike from 1A Auto. We’ve been selling auto parts for over 30 years!

To remove this master window switch, there is a tab that is fitting under the door panel on this side, and there's a clip on this side, so it needs to be lifted up this way first, and then lift it out. I'm going to use this plastic prying tool—you can get these from 1AAuto.com—just kind of work it underneath the edge of the switch. If you need to, you can go on this side, the outside here. I'm just going to pop it up, and then it's going to lift out backwards. This hook here has to come off. Push in the locks, and pull this connector out. And another lock on this side, undo this connector. Take that out.

Then go in behind the door handle, use a plastic trim tool to pop this lock off. Might have to do it with that. Pop that plastic piece out, and put that aside. There's a small push clip. You can use a small flat bladed screwdriver to kind of open it up. Tricky to get in here. So, popped it out, now I can pull the clip out. It should be unlocked, and when I pull the door panel off, it should pop that out.

Remove the Phillips head screw. There's just push clips that are around the edge of the door holding it to the door panel now, so I'm going to hold onto the door and just give it a firm pull. Reach my hand underneath. The top of this door panel kind of clamps around the door panel, so I lift it up and off. Now that clip popped out because it was unlocked. So, we've got the door lock, the cables, going to pop this out and then pop that up. And then, there's another one here. I'm going to pop that off of there and this will pull out.

Take the small flat bladed screwdriver, and pop this lock up. I just had to pry this tab out from underneath this metal here, and that's what unlocked it. I need to remove this clip here and push that off. We'll pull that straight up, and pull the door panel out of the car.

We'll take off this water vapor barrier. You're going to pop these plugs out. You can use a plastic trim tool. You can get these from 1aauto.com. Just, kind of, pop it out gently. Make sure you don't lose them if you drop them.

Unplug the door lock actuator. There's a little lock on the top. Just push it in and pull it right out. Now, get this rubber plug out of here. Just push that out. So now we're ready to take this vapor barrier off. It's got this butyl tape that's on the back side of it. It's very, very sticky. Just, kind of, carefully peel it off. You'll probably want to wear gloves, because it'll get all over your hands.

You're, also at the same time, going to guide out this harness, as I pull this off. If this stuff is really sticky, you can take a razor blade, and, as you're peeling it, just sort of slice the butyl tape part. Try to be careful with the vapor barrier, because it's kind of fragile and can stretch and rip. You want to be able to reuse it. Then guide the harness out of here. Just keep going. It also helps when you do this, if it's a warm day, this butyl tape is a lot easier to work with. Guide this one out.

Now, I want to put this somewhere where it's not. Lay the sticky side down and just where it won't get damaged so you can reuse it. Use a plastic trim tool or a small flat bladed screwdriver. You can get these plastic tools from 1aauto.com. We're going to pop out this rubber plug, so we can access some of the bolts that are behind it. Kind of work it out. Put that aside.

Before we remove the two bolts that are holding the outer door handle on, there's one here and one out here, we need to remove this actuator rod that goes from the door handle down to the door lock actuator. There's a plastic clip at the top. I'm going to pull it away with my finger. Slide it open. It needs to come out this way. If it doesn't want to come free, you can pop a trim tool up behind it and use that to pry it off, because it's got a little bit of a lip to it. I'll pop it right off.

I'm going to take a 10 millimeter socket ratchet extension and reach it in and remove the 10 millimeter bolt. This bolt is not captured, so you could drop it inside the door. So, now that I've got it loose, I've just reached my hand in there, and I've grabbed it. I'm going to take it out and put it aside, so I don't lose it. Remove the other 10 millimeter bolt that's over here. I've taken the bolt out. There is a little metal bracket in here. I'll take that and just slide it off. Pull that out of the way. I'm going to open this up. At the same time, I'm going to, kind of work this out of here. This might get caught, the lock cylinder, so you, kind of, have to move the bracketry that the lock cylinder's on to free it up. At the same time, you're, kind of, working this one out of here. I'm just going to pull the lock cylinder bracket out of there. Now I can pull the whole door handle assembly out.

So this is sitting way up high inside. So, as you open it, it flips that down and helps it slide out of the opening in the door panel. Just to give you a better idea, when we reinstall this handle, there's an opening here on this lock cylinder piece and the bracket that it's held to. There is a tab here. That tab is going to slide into here, and it's going to line up with these two tabs here and here. The center one is for the bolt. When that lines up, it'll slide right together. Then you'll be able to bolt it together. It's a little tricky to get that in there, but it's just easier to point it out this way, before I'm you there trying to assemble it. I'm going to slide this into place here. Now, this needs to go through here, so it's easier to hold this part and push it up and slide that in. At the same time, work that down. You may need to slide your hand in from the inside of the door panel and hold the lock cylinder piece. Then, sort of, fiddle with it so it fits into place.

Since I've got that one caught and where I want it to be, I'm going to just reach in with the socket extension and put the bolts in there. Be very careful you don't drop it. You could take just a little bit of this stuff here, get it stuck on the bolt, and it will stick inside here, and it won't fall out. Find the hole and line it up. You might have to hold this handle on the outside.

Get that threaded in. Just snug it up. You don't have to kill it. Take it out. Now, slide this retaining piece back up under here. Get it in place. Get that bolted up and make it snug. Now, take our control rod, push that into the grommet like that. Then push the little lock tab over it. Now it's installed. We're going to replace our vapor barrier. It's got some openings in it for the different cables. Let's do this first. Put the control cables in for the door lock and the door handle. There's another opening here for the door lock actuator. Get that set up. Feed the harness through for the master window switch and your control. Once those are in place, just, kind of, line it up with where it was originally. This stuff is sticky. Just, kind of, put it back into place. Just go right around the edge. Replace any rubber plugs you took out. That one there. This one goes in this side. It also holds in the vapor barrier. Put this little one back in place. Don't forget to plug in your door lock actuator.

To reinstall our door panel, we'll feed the master window switch up into the opening in the door panel. You're going to get close to the door. You need to reinstall the door lock and the door pull handle. This one with the threads, or the things that look like threads on it, sits in this opening here. You're going to get it pushed into place, and put this lock over. Get that into position. Also, helps to have the window open, as you can see, so you can kind of look through.

Grab our other cable and do the same thing. Push it into the opening, push the lock over, snap that in place and then push this lock up there. Now, I'm going to hang on the edge of the door panel. We'll get that set up first, just like that. Make sure our harness is out here, and we can just push it into place on the clips. Go around the door panel and push it in.

This Phillips head screw with the shoulder goes to the top. There's also a push clip that goes in here. Push that in place. Push the center part in to lock it. Place the trim cap, slide the little hook front part in. That's installed. Then, install this screw.

To install this, plug the large connector back in place. It'll click when it's locked in. Plug this small white connector into here. It'll also click. There's a tab that's going to fit into the door panel on this side first, then a clip that's going to clip down into the door panel. Start by fitting it this way, and then pushing it down into the door panel.

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