Door handle repair nightmare, and alternative solution.

[aclwalker 3]

Not been on for a while, but just thought I'd document the nightmare I had with my door handle repair.

 

My driver's door handle gave way in the -20C weather at winter so 6 months of getting in the passenger side was riding my luck on the unknown state of the passenger handle! The passenger handle always felt worse than the driver's but I guess it's no surprise that the driver's failed first given the extra use it gets.

 

I had the repair kits from the forum waiting for this eventuality. I'd just like to say what a great kit this is. However...

 

... I had incredible difficulty with the extraction of the pin. Corrosion seemed to have bonded the pin in. I blunted every one of the self-tappers in the kit trying to get them to bind. Eventually I got one to bind after widening the hole slightly with a drill. But disaster struck. The head of the screw came off when I was trying to extract the pin. Then the screw snapped flush with the moulding!

 

To cut a long story short, I had to drill out the screw head, but still could not extract the pin. Eventually I resorted to the Dremel, and ground away the remaining piece of striker plate, right through the pin until it was sufficiently weakened that I could hammer out the crumbled pieces. Then I was able to remove the remaining piece of pin with a drill.

 

I saw a youtube video where the guy extracted the pin with a drill straight off. I'm not sure if I'll try it this way straight off for the other side, as I don't fancy getting another screw snapped off.

 

Unfortunately I have slightly enlarged and ovaled the hole because of the snapped screw, but it still seems to hold the new pin. I'm hoping that it doesn't work itself loose over time.

 

If you have to Dremel, then you need to take great care not to cut the spring or the moulding of the handle, but you can get surprisingly deep into the striker arm with this method. Then you can hammer the sides inwards with a screwdriver and crumble it away until it comes off. Hammering inwards on the remains with a nail can help to crumble the weakened striker until you can withdraw it.

 

I'll try to upload some pictures later of the remains of my old striker.

 

Any ideas why I had such difficulty? Any alternative methods of pin extraction on old corroded handles? I'm not sure drilling would have worked like in the youtube video. That seemed to be a nice new handle anyway.

 

My new handle works very well now after I greased it up. I also got my central looking back on that side with liberal use of carb cleaner (left my switch cleaner at home).

[daves16v 1]

I've updated the install guide since you had the kits off me to improve the process, I've tried a new method several times and it seems to work. PM me your email address and I'll send it over.

 

I've also had to grind away the remaining part of the striker arm a few times in the past and to be honest it's a last resort if all else fails. It's time consuming but you'll get there.

[ben_wooduk 0]

Can vouch for the new instructions, i was never able to get the screw in the pin to be honest, but the new instructions have worked for me 3 times.

[hendrikbmx 0]

I just used a bike spoke ( bmx ) at first I screwed it in then when pulling the pin came half out and got stuck, so then I bent the spoke 90 degress with pliers and pushed it in from the other side and it came out nicely, man I tried an hour to get that screw in there, useless.

at first I made the bend really short like this "L" then longe like L_ and so on. hope this makes sense.