blackobxt Posted January 17, 2023 Share Posted January 17, 2023 So I’m faced with the unfortunate situation where it appears that the clip that connects the cable on the driver rear outside door handle to the door latch has broken. No big deal right? Just pop the door panel, replace clip and reattach cable and good to go for another 200,000 miles right? Well due to my curious 2yr old the child lock is on so the inside door handle is inoperable as well! I’ve looked in between the belt Moulding with the window down and there isn’t much to work with in terms of manipulating a release lever with the plastic cover still attached to the latch assembly. I’ve encountered this before on customers vehicles and sometimes the only answer is to destroy the door panel to remove it and replace the panel. Before I have to go through that and find a good replacement, has anyone gone through this and come up with a genius solution? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seanyb505 Posted January 17, 2023 Share Posted January 17, 2023 I'd look to see how much of the door panel is available by removing the rear seat bottom cushion, potentially how much of the hinge hardware is accessible with the front door open, and then if a slim jim could operate the internal mechanism. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackobxt Posted January 17, 2023 Author Share Posted January 17, 2023 Yeah I’m going to try that. Quite a bit of the rear part of the panel goes behind into the door jamb when it’s closed is my biggest concern. I’ll be trying everything before I resort to YNANDP lol 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rusty9 Posted January 17, 2023 Share Posted January 17, 2023 Sucks that its cable and not rod actuated. Best I can think of is take the other side off and see if you can determine what the child lock switch actuates and see if you can somehow hit that from the window seal or under the interior trim piece. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infosecdad Posted January 18, 2023 Share Posted January 18, 2023 Based on the location of the child lock switch, you may be able to get a strip of metal that is stiff enough, but still flexible to bend and slide in between the door and the frame and toggle the switch off so the inner handle would work. You would have to go at it from the inside and snake a little bit; but I think it would be possible with the right thickness of a strip of metal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackobxt Posted January 18, 2023 Author Share Posted January 18, 2023 1 hour ago, Infosecdad said: Based on the location of the child lock switch, you may be able to get a strip of metal that is stiff enough, but still flexible to bend and slide in between the door and the frame and toggle the switch off so the inner handle would work. You would have to go at it from the inside and snake a little bit; but I think it would be possible with the right thickness of a strip of metal. I was actually thinking about this. Cutting a notch in a putty knife and wrapping it in a thin layer of masking tape to prevent scratches and seeing if I can hook the child lock with the notch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infosecdad Posted January 18, 2023 Share Posted January 18, 2023 From my quick testing, you need to push to unlock which should be easier than having to hook and pull. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackobxt Posted January 18, 2023 Author Share Posted January 18, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, Infosecdad said: From my quick testing, you need to push to unlock which should be easier than having to hook and pull. That’s good to know because on the passenger side it’s the opposite. Alright this is seeming possible. Gotta wait for the wife and kids to go to bed then I’ll give her the ole college try and report back Edited January 18, 2023 by blackobxt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infosecdad Posted January 18, 2023 Share Posted January 18, 2023 Playing with it, there seems to be a slight curve to the slider. I think the least amount of force needed would be coming at it from slightly above and angled down a bit. Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackobxt Posted January 18, 2023 Author Share Posted January 18, 2023 Alright boys I was successful! The way the door panel fits there was no way to even get the putty knife in there at least without scratching and destroying stuff. I thought about trying to get one of my curved hose picks in from the outside but that was also not looking good. I rolled the window down and went through the belt Moulding next to the window and tried popping the cover off the door lock mechanism and I’ll be damned if there wasn’t a lever right there on top. At first I thought that with my luck that’s for the door lock but nope it popped the door right open. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackobxt Posted January 18, 2023 Author Share Posted January 18, 2023 I’ll fix the door handle tomorrow but for now I’ll take my victory to the couch with a nice hard drink. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackobxt Posted January 20, 2023 Author Share Posted January 20, 2023 Well Antoine have an outside door handle for sale? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KZJonny Posted January 20, 2023 Share Posted January 20, 2023 Colour matter? I'm parting an 05 in RPB (I think?) anything from inside the door is all yours. (Like, if maybe you can transfer all the lock parts to your handle plastics? It's not my car, but it was a "save it from going directly to the scrapper" thing, so I'm hosting it for a while.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackobxt Posted January 20, 2023 Author Share Posted January 20, 2023 At this point color doesn’t matter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KZJonny Posted January 20, 2023 Share Posted January 20, 2023 (edited) 24 minutes ago, blackobxt said: At this point color doesn’t matter Fair enough. Let me know which parts you need, and an address. Also, give me an idea from 1 to 5 blown head gaskets, how fast you need this. Happy to expedite, but this is Canada in January. Not every day is a suitable day to pull a door apart! Edited January 20, 2023 by KZJonny 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MajorWood Posted August 23, 2023 Share Posted August 23, 2023 The only difference between brain surgery and car repair is the amount of force involved, with cars requiring a lot less. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackobxt Posted August 23, 2023 Author Share Posted August 23, 2023 48 minutes ago, MajorWood said: The only difference between brain surgery and car repair is the amount of force involved, with cars requiring a lot less. Just dropping in to let people know you work on brains? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MajorWood Posted August 23, 2023 Share Posted August 23, 2023 There is a lot of similarity in the tool sets and approaches. I was actually looking around for suggestions on better sources for rear door handles, since the last ones lasted about 3 months, and as soon as I hit this thread I started to think bout how I would get in there to pop the lock with the least damage. I recently had a root canal done, through an existing crown using an operating microscope; and a couple of pacemaker procedures. The history of how those two techniques evolved was fascinating. I spent 40 years in academic medicine solving difficult problems and I always appreciate any new knowledge from different fields, because in some way it can usually be adapted for a different purpose. I say this as a guy whose fuel pump currently runs off the accessory lights from the trailer hitch harness, because that was a much easier fix than tracing and replacing the bad wire from the fuel pump relay. And not too different than how my pacemaker bypasses the faulty AV node using wires threaded through a large vein in my shoulder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackobxt Posted August 23, 2023 Author Share Posted August 23, 2023 Gotcha. I went with oem which was actually pretty affordable at $37 a piece. I figured they had a pretty good track record since they survived 18yrs on my car so the new ones will likely live well past the rest of the car. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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