Months ago, I had the dreaded door popping noise on my w126 (300sd) driver door and could see the broken weld spots on the door pillar so I drilled and tapped and resecured plate with good success. Now, months later, popping returned so I purchased new door check thinking it was the door check . . . wrong! I noticed when I pulled door pin that mount was ready to fall thru into the door pillar well! Plate has dropped in spite of drilling and tapping and my reccomendation to anyone now is do not use weld spots as guides, drill and tap much closer towards center of mount, welds must be on the edges of this plate is my guess which now explains why I have nothing holding this critical mount/pivot point in place. How to access now that plate has dropped? I have read that kickwell cover is not an option -is this true? Or pull fender to access and is this a pita? I would really like to fix this problem once and for all to avoid future door damage. Help! Any thoughts? Thanks!

I believe if you pull off the kick panel that there will be an access hole there, and then fish it out with a magnet.

You can probably do a nut and bolt repair once the kickpanel is off.
Gilly

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thanks, but I have read different but perhaps I could remove kick panel and cut away metal to expose exact spot and go from there - I was also thinking that removing fender would expose this area also -anyone?