Hey guy's. I've seen several posts around regarding outside door handles not working. My passangers side handle on my deuce also did not work. Yesterday while letting the coolant cool down after a flush, I decided to fix it. The fix is easy, the hardest part is getting the mechanism in and out of the door.
Tools required:
Phillips screw driver (I used a screw gun)
Vise Grips
Hammer
Punch
That's it!
1.) Roll the window up.
2.) Remove the access panel on the bottom of the door.
3.) Remove the 3 screws holding the bolt carrier. (There are 2 on the side of the door and one inside the door.
4.) Remove the 2 screws holding the outside door handle in and pull the handle out, it's just a square post.
5.) Remove the 3 screws holding the inside door handle support plate and also the one holding the handle on, then remove the handle. The mechanism is now loose and ready to be removed.
You're fighting some rigging for the window mechanism and such and very large fore arms may not do the trick. What worked well for me was trying to drop the bolt side first then bring the inside handle side down behind it. The mechanism comes out easiest towards the back of the door. Once you have the mechanism removed you see how it all works, it's fairly simple. The inside door handle DIRECTLY pulls the bolt, so it alway's works. The ouside handle has a cam pushing against a little tab which pushes the bolt against the spring. This tab is usually bent up or worn out as shown in the first picture below. You can reinsert the outside handle, turn it, and watch the cam go under the tab. That won't work well. Now is also a good time to lube the mechanism up.
6.) Pull the bolt back as far as you can and hold it there with vise grips clamped to hold it retracted.
7.) You can see the cam and tab in the second pic. Put a punch on the tab and hammer it back down a little.
8.) Now retest the mechanism, should work fine now.
9.) Now just re-snake the mechanism back up into the door and screw it all back together. Watch for the orientation of the triangular plate for the inside handle. I installed the inside handle first to help line it all back up.
If this isn't the problem sometimes the cam is rounded out from the outside handle where you would need a new mechanism. But, typically this is the problem and it's a fairly easy fix to add ALOT more convenience if it hasn't been working.
-Kelly
Attached Thumbnails
Also, it is quite a bit easier to pull the latch from the door if you pull the door glass out and lower the window crank all the way to the bottom. It them makes plenty of room to stick your arm up into the door to get the latch. Taking the glass out only involves removing the 2 C clips from the arms, and the two window stops on each end that are held by 2 screws each. All in all it adds about an extra 2 minutes to the disassembly and to the reassembly process, but makes a big difference in getting your arm up into the door.
I just finished repairing both my handles and thought some may benefit from my experience. On the first one I hammered the tab down as instructed but the latch didn’t survive the pre-install test. I then noticed that the body of the latch was out of square which resulted in extra slop. Using the truck bumper as an anvil, I squared the face of the latch with the body and I bend down just a tad the tab that the bolt slides against. I did the same with the other latch. It was further out of square but was actually tighter fitting. So far so good. The re-square just takes a few whacks of a hammer and I would highly recommend you to do this while you have it out. Also during the reinstall be sure to assemble loosely with all screws then tighten each a little at a time so you won’t be pulling it out of shape again.
Putting everything back together was a chore as my arm would not fit in the door even though I removed both the window and the regulator (I left it loose in the door). This was well worth the added work. I doubt I could have done the job if I hadn’t taken these extra steps. The best advice I can give on the reinstall is draft someone with skinny forearms to do it for you.
