Ok So I ordered a new drivers door handle including surround. Its a brand new unit. I swapped over my lock barrel and connected up the two push rods. Put it all back together. The lock works. But the handle will not open the door. However when I operate the handle I hear the mechanism working inside the door and can still open it with the handle on the inside.
Any ideas? Door card off I\'m guessing to see whats going on in there...
Doing the same job tomorrow, hope mine goes smoothly, let us know if you solve your problem
My mot is due tomorrow so have asked the guys in the garage to try to get it working so it can pass. Apparently it could be the latch/hinges need realigning. A common problem with big heavy doors dropping.
Took the car to the garage for MOT but it failed because unfortunately the guys couldn\'t sort out the door handle. So I set about sorting it myself. It was either that or trying to sell my car with no MOT. Just wouldn\'t happen. Or if it did then I would lose a lot of money.
So here\'s what I found:-
First off I knew the handle and surround I had ordered was brand new so I knew it couldn\'t be a problem with that. So I set about taking the door card off. Inspected inside. Inspected the latch. Could see no adjustment and felt the mechanism working inside. I also discovered the push rod coming down from the handle itself was still attached to the mechanism. And has an elongated hole in it. Presumably so that when you operate the inside handle the latch has room to move without lifting the outside handle.
I then discovered that if I simply push the rod down with my new handle removed it did infact open the door. So I realised it could be a number of things. Either the elongated hole had worn and become further elongated or the rod could have got bent as once connected to the handle it just wasn\'t reaching far enough to release the catch.
Then I looked at my original door handle mechanism and discovered it had been modified:-
(http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b175/carlb4/IMAG0101.jpg)
(http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b175/carlb4/IMAG0104-1.jpg)
(http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b175/carlb4/IMAG0105-1.jpg)
Note the lever arm has been cut and a section of only approx 8mm welded in. Very small amount. But makes all the difference to the amount of leverage.
So I swapped over all the mechanism to make one good handle that will work with my car.
Also discovered the reason these handles break so easily. On the leverage arm it has two metal tangs which wrap around the lever arm of the handle itself. On mine it had bent and scored the plastic. Obviously it gets to the point where it wears through and....snap.
So I also had to swap over the new pivot with unbent metal tangs. Which was an absolute pain as it was rivoted. So had to drill em out and put a bolt through with locking nuts to still allow free movement.
But the good news is I now have a working door handle :-) So in for retest tomorrow then she has an MOT and ready for sale. And its only taken me about 6 hours to come to this conclusion lol.
Hope others find this helpful.
I also now have my old handle if people need spares and repairs. Though I am considering trying to repair and maybe do the same modification and then sell on to help someone else out but also to try to make back some of the money I had to spend on this new unit. So if anyone is interested let me know.
Quote from: K7RXX;806382Doing the same job tomorrow, hope mine goes smoothly, let us know if you solve your problem
How did you get on? Bet your one was easy wasn\'t it? lol.