- My model of MX-5 is: __ NC (2011 plate)
- I’m based near: __ Manchester
- I’m looking for technical help or recommendations on: __ “Coaxing” the door panel off
So … I’ve managed to remove the plate in the door handle, and remove the cover on the “big handle on the door”. So far so good. And remove all three screws (storing them carefully, so I can see which is which)
Next up is coaxing the door panel off. Seen a video that just says “starting at the bottom, ease the door panel off”. Yeah, right … 
I can feel that there are clips in there. I’m using some plastic ar interior pry tools. But so far, I can’t persuade any of the clips (starting in the rear bottom corner) to pop out.
What am I doing wrong? Do I just need more brute force? Or is them some secret step on this model that I’ve overlooked (2011 NC)
Thank you as ever for your guidance, lovely people!
Nick
You need a bit of brute force start at the bottom when loose lift the door card up . You will need some new clips as they will brake. Took my N/S one off last week .Mind the small speaker wire you need to diss connect it
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Get your fingers behind the bottom of the door card and pull. You may need to ease it apart from the door frame first with a tool, flat blade.
Have spare clips they’ll break or you’ll have some stuck in the door frame afterwards. A dab of red rubber grease or lithium grease in the holes first when refitting helps further removal if needed.
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Thanks guys… .I’ll go and get a bit more “persuasive” with it 
Grand. Released. And with most of the clips intact, I think!
Next challenge: The inner black trim panel is released (see photo). But it is held by … two cables that look like they go into the door handle / opener. And by a cable leading to the tweeter (small speaker wire - thanks for the heads up @BNsilver ). Any ideas how I release these, in order to clearly remove the door panel? How does that clip on the small speaker cable release? And the vid I watched suggested wriggling the door release out of its housing, but it doesn’t seem keen on that?
Tilt the inner door handle on its side and it slips out of the hole
I had trouble removing a cable clipped into my tweeter speaker it should release if you squeeze the clip connector. Failing that I just unscrewed the tweeter and left it attached to the door card.
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Mick’s kind guidance / encouragement did the trick. Door card removed.
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And with the door panel removed, I can confirm what I was really after: The big speaker in that door has a lot of bass-buzz. So it wasn’t just a loose bolt, or a vibrating bit of trim.
I’ll crack on with replacing the speaker now!
ah! found the problem: the back of the speaker is wet!
water ingress from somewhere. Any thoughts where to look? window seals?
Is the speaker shield in place ?
I found mine upside down so they collected water rather than stopping water falling on the back of the speaker
The splash guard/shield should be at the top and the connector at the bottom
Good point, Dean. Yup, the rubber “splash guard” is still in place, and is positioned at the top of the speaker.
But it looks like there’s been a fair bit of water getting in there from somewhere (the seal at the bottom of the front quarterlight?).
I’m not going to fit the good “new” speaker for now. Understanding what has been going on is a positive step forward - not surprising that the speaker doesn’t work well when it is wet! And that does explain why it has sometimes sounded ok (presumably during dry spells).
If anyone has any thoughts on seals etc to check, I’m all ears!
Nick
I had ingress from a loose/broken end cap for the door to glass weather strip.
The strip also bananas the ends up as the rubber ages.
Also, if the outlets at the bottom of the door are blocked, the door will fill with water.
Fortunately, there’s no swimming pool sloshing around inside the door. So it looks like my main problem here is water getting in from the top. Thank you for the pointers about the weather strip end caps Andrew. I’ll take a look at them.
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I’ve ordered new window glass weatherstrips. And also the two “front end bits of rubber” that sit in front of the longer weatherstrips.
On a 12 year old car, investing in a bit of new rubber to keep the weather out sounds like a sensible plan.
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A certain amount of water will get past those weather strips, they stop the bulk of it though and hence drain holes in the door bottoms.
Absolutely Mick. And my drain holes are clear. But there seems to be “more water than should be expected” coming in on the passenger side door. Hence the wet speaker (which is never going to end well!)
Thank you everyone for kind help along the way today. I greatly appreciate it!
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It’s a few years since I had to sort an electric window motor, facing all the same card removal issues on my early NC Mk3.0. At the time I took the opportunity to replace the window guides. I had noticed abrasion wear and light corrosion on the guides and discovered that those fitted to early NC’s often suffered from this issue. An updated version, fitted to later NC’s was claimed to resolve the problem. To date, it has! I mention this here in case anyone else is faced with stripping their doors for any reason.
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Thanks. This will come in handy when I upgrade to NC2 door cards!
Just going to add a postscript here: The main problem, it turned out, was that the “Door to glass” weatherstrip was worn. In particular, part of that component is a bit of foam that presses against the (Nick searches for the technical term) black pillar that goes down into the door between the opening window and the non-opening triangle of glass. And the weatherstrip had worn very badly at that point, possibly from vibration over the years. Result: It left a girt big gap that allowed water to run pretty freely down that black post, into the door… and straight into the speaker.
It cost me just shy of £100 to buy two new weather strips, one for each door. And they are actually pretty simple to remove, and to fit the new ones.
I also noticed that since doing that, the doors make a much more satisfying “clunk” when I close them.
Here’s a photo of the worn weather strip, and of the new one.
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