StevenK

iTrader: (1)

Hey guys, I'm posting this for a friend I work with. He has a later bird convertable. 88 or up. The problem is someone broke into his car, and since then he has been unable to open the passenger side door. Both inside and outside handles do not work. How should he go about fixxing this? It seems like it would be pretty damn hard to get the door panel off with the door shut, is that the only way?

Anyone else have experience with this kind of problem?

Thnx.

Maverick H1L

iTrader: (8)

Some a**hole probably broke the lock in the locked position so the door won't engage the handles and mechanism together so the door will open. Have you tried to manually unlock the door from the inside? If that can't be done, you will need to somehow unlock the door with a long piece of wire inserted between the window and the door frame when the window is rolled dow,, if it can be rolled down, and you have to catch the mechanism inside to unlock the door. Some have done it, I have not had the joy of attempted theft recovery yet, although the pass door on my car wouldn't lock when I bought it-the idiot prev owner had removed the door panels on both doors and got the driver's mirror mechanism broke and stuck inside and the pass side interior lock rod stuck inside the door panel, so the mirror wouldn't stay in one place, and the pass door wouldn't lock no matter what I did.

You are about to embark on a really thrilling journey filled with lots of swearing and sweat, and it is a long one.

It is possible to get the door panels off with the door closed, but it requires a lot of bending and twisting of your arms to pop the clips holding the panel to the door shell, and there is not a lot of room to do so in with the door closed. You still have to roll the window down to get the upper trim to pop off so you can get the entire panel off.

StevenK

iTrader: (1)

okay, I havnt had a chance to ask my bud if the door is acting like its locked of if the handle feels like it just isnt hooked up, but I was just gonna e-mail him a link to this thread once I got some info for him.

Assuming the door is stuck in lock, just get a slim jim and unlock the door from the window opening, and it should open right?

Lets assume the handles for some reason are just not hooked or frozen, what would be the proccess to fix that?

Should he just take it to a shop and let them screw him on labor, or is this something someone with a little mechanicle sense can fix?

TTT

Maverick H1L

iTrader: (8)

You still have to pop the door panel IF you even want to attempt to fix it yourself or himself. It's easy only after you get the panel off, which is going to be a PITA with the door stuck being locked or whatever is going wrong there. I'm going to assume that the vert doesn't have power locks or they are not working for some reason...

He needs to have a low profile pry bar (looks just like a regular flat steel pry bar but like 4 inches long max) to fit in between the paneling inside the car and the door panel. If you start at a corner and work your way around you should be able to get it off. Once the panel is off, everything becomes so much easier to fix, but the space is limited. Someone else on here has had the same probelm, but he caused it himself to see how easy it was for the common thief to do, and he fixed it. Search for "broken door lock" or something similar to that and you will find all of your information there.

thechristopherh

if he broke in with a slim jim, then the plastic peice that holds the physical door handle in place with the latch is broken. its a $2 fix.

capt07

FTW!

The 86 I bought had a stuck drivers side door, turned out the door handle had broken off the pull on the inside. I just pulled the top of the door panel down and reached down and pulled the lever and presto bingo the durn thing opened. Also if it had been locked the lock pull was right below it.

oh and to pull the top down enough, I had already very carefully removed the door pull bezel and the door pull while sitting inside the car. Not that hard.

w00t! yay for me!

-Paul

StevenK

iTrader: (1)

Holy old thread, so old in fact, that I forgot I even posted this. Wow

capt07

The forum search engine strikes again!