Aflac

I have fought and fussed with my driver's side door. It will not open from either handles. And yes, the door is unlocked. Looking into the door, I can see all the latch mechanism APPEAR to work properly. Do any of you know how to get the door unlatched? I'm pulling my hair out here....

MotorHead

Can't help you but when you get it open let me know how you did it my passeneger
side door has been locked shut for a year now

Aflac

i'm thinking tomorrow morning about going to the autoparts store and getting a small piece of barstock and bend a small end on it and see if I can fish it in to the lock pawl area and see if I can pull it over center while having the door handle down...

Ak. Mal

Wish I could help. But, I'm half looped and I never could figure out how my father in law opened my drivers door in the same situation.

I do recall that he said there was a slot where you could see the mechanism behind the cover. I want to say it was on the lower portion of the latch. He just used a flathead screw driver and click, open door. He did open the door from the window slot, so I know you aren't totally screwed.

He took a rust penetrator that I had, because it had lubrication oil in it, and hosed the door latches down with them. He said they were just under lubed and sticking.

On a side note, my outer door handle had half fallen, he sprayed the springs that are supposed to hold it up, and said "That will be fixed tomorrow". Sure as shyte, he was right. My door handle went back to the full upright position.

Aflac

Much appreciaed, Mal...that part that really is teh suck is with the door panel still being on, I can't reach my hand in the door to try to get it to free up...

Ak. Mal

I don't have door panels on. But, he did it from outside the car going down through the window slot.

Get into the car via the other door and lower the windows. Hit the latch with a lubricating spray and wait a little bit. Then try flipping different parts of teh latch. Not, necessarilly the tab that the handles would move. But near them.

Think of the latch as a rectangular object. It sits flat on the backside of the door, Taller than wide, and less than 1/2" thick. On the lower portion in the middle, there is an opening in the latch case. He moved a piece of the mechanism through that opening that released the door.

Aflac

Tomorrow morning when I go out to work on it, i'm gonna spray the everlovin poo out of it and clay bar and take my time waiting for the stuff to soak in...

Ak. Mal

Ok, just wanted to clarify. I just grabbed my spare latch and drew a rudementary sketch and set it to Aflac. My father in law pressed down on the tab directly below where the lock rod attatches to the latch.

Aflac

I thought that I tried that, but i will try it again...

SuperDave2085

I had the same problem, I had worn out linkage, replaced it, WD-40 all of it, and aside from the occaisonal sticking its been good ever since, but i also had locks replaced at same time. I had to buy another door, couldnt by the linkage i needed, and the door turned out cheaper than some of the other places....

MPSJM

We had the same problem after we rebuilt ours. It ended up that the linkage from the outside handle was adjusted a little to tight. Once we locked the door and then unlocked it it would not allow the lock to fully release since it was like the handle was slightly pushed in when you tryed to operate the lock. Try diconecting the outside handle linkage and see if the doo opens with the inside leveer if so then readjust the outside linkage.

Ak. Mal

Ok, so today you hosed the poo out of the latch and clay barred the car. But did you get teh door open?

Aflac

I didnt even feel like dinking with the car today.. but dad seems to think its a rigging problem so I'm gonna try to pop off the last rod i had off (the outer door handle) and try to go from there tomorrow...

Aflac

Well I tried the soak down and the pushing down on the tab... no dice....

CHEESERAL

I'm with MPSJM, the outter door handle rod has an adjustment and set screw, if there is any presure here the lock won't unlock, loosen the set screw and back it off a little and the door will open if that's the problem.

Good luck

Aflac

Well I finally got it open... What I ended up doing was working the poop out of the lock/unlock handle. I took the handle off and put a set of needlenose vise grips on the stud (not on the serrated part, the smooth part) and worked it back and forth about a million times. As near as I can tell, the lock got over centered somehow. Needless to say, I am not going to put the door back together until i'm dead sure that the problem is fixed!

Aflac

TTT----finally! got some fix to this piece!!

Aflac

I think I have a good fix on the situation finally. I got the door open and pulled off the door panel to see the mechanism. I closed the door again and it did the same thing. I fought with it but did get it to open back up. So finally I got fed up and pulled the mechanism. Upon inspecting, I saw a couple of bent tabs that I straightened out and washed the mechanism out with PB Blaster, Carb Cleaner and Liquid wrench. I didn't put the unit back in until I was positive that it was working extremely smooth. After I got it back in, It now workls like a champ!!!

Ak. Mal

Good to hear. Now, go do the passenger side before it jams shut also.



Oh, btw, Sat. morning when my wife woke up I asked here where the camera was. She replied without hesitating, "Under the front seat of the car". Like I would have ever looked there.

Aflac

hahaha about the camera... the passenger door is working fine, i'm not about to pull it apart...I do need to get a c-clip for the outer handle rod....