I just had one of those moments. I want to kick and punch holes in the drywall and throw my tools all over the garage. I'm removing the driver's door panel from a '94 Chevy Suburban Silverado and the plug on the back of the window switch bank WILL ABSOLUTELY NOT COME OFF!!!!

I'm in my full magnifiers and I can see the clip I need to depress but that plug is frozen on. I've already abused the housing horsing it around. Attached is a photo of the little &*^**&^. I'll break it if keep trying; I can feel it.

Aside from some medication, any advice on how to remove this?

 

Some of those plugs can be a real bear....Also, sometimes there are 2 locking devices on them......maybe there is a 2nd one on the other side

 

What year suburban? The 88-96 suburban switches really are a pain ... you basically pull the panel and leave the switch attached and just poke the switch assembly through the hole in the panel.

96-99, they should unplug just fine If I recall, it's just a plastic latch holding the plug to the door switch. If you can't separate the plug from the switch, carefully separate the switch from the switch trim panel and push the switch through the hole leaving the switch attached.

 

I have a '94 and you are so right! I just slid it through the panel and its hanging there. I give up on that. No wonder '94s are so hard for parts. Everything breaks whenever repaired. Even the dealer told me that switch panel is a nightmare.

Hey, just for those reading: I finally removed the entire interior steel door panel after replacing the door latch. The reason is that the panel wouldn't go back on correctly due to some misalignment of the window regulator. No matter what I tried it wouldn't go back on--it hung about 1/2 inch too low and wouldn't budge higher. I had to let the window down manually to about half open, then I taped it with duck tape. Next I forced those rollers back in their slots, that bottom one, too. Another royal pain. After 8 straight hours of on/off and on/off (I also removed and reattached the latch rods three times), I've finally got that door back together. A Youtube of my experience and procedures would probably be helpful to a relative novice, but also highly self-defamatory. If anything in that door goes bad again I'll sell this truck.

 

On the subject of Rage, I was driving downtown for Season shopping and found that my door lock wouldn't work. The clip on my new door latch popped off and the lock rod was dangling inside my door. That was a brand new clip. That means that today I removed and replaced the door panel again, now making it three complete runs on that routine. My hands are all cut up from the steel edges of that inner panel. This isn't my thing. Obviously.

But I do have a question. All the jacking around in that door must result in a lot of strain on the lock rods and maybe I had a bent rod causing pressure on that clip and that's why it failed.

Any ideas on why that clip popped off? I'm asking because now that I close my "new" door, it shuts very tight and doesn't rattle, but I can hear a spring sound inside the door, or maybe the sound of the rods hitting one another or vibrating after contacting. I'll ignore the issue, but certainly don't want to pull that door apart again. thx

 

I hear ya on the chevy truck door woes ... It's not one of my favorite parts of these trucks. The regulators are a pain, the lock rods are a pain, the door handles are a pain ... everything about them is just painfully difficult to deal with.

My guess is if the rods were bent, they would be more likely to fail instantly, or they would be hard to connect back up. Do you mean the little metal clips that slide over their receptacle on the lock cylinder? The little metal clips that slide on and off aren't all that sturdy after you reuse them a few times. I find that they're at their peak performance is when you first get them and insert the end of the rod into them for the first time and the fingers grab the end of the rod really nice.

As for the little dorman plastic clip that's for the lock cylinders, I haven no words for those pieces of crap. I put one or two on my truck before, and I tell yea both of them have fallen off. I have given up on the doorman lock cylinder lever clips .... chevy doors just drive me nuts.

And you're absolutely right about the dealer telling you the switches are a pain on those ... and I agree (I work at a Chevy dealer :P) - the switches ARE a pain! You're more likely to bust up the switch or the connector before them guys unclip. The "official" service procedure for taking the door panel off on one of those is just like I said above lol. Poke it through the hole and leave it all connected ... much easier.