Back passenger side door not opening | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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Back passenger side door not opening

Dsands503

Member
Joined
May 21, 2013
Messages
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City, State
Milwaukie, Oregon
Year, Model & Trim Level
97 Ford Explorer
My 97 ford explorers back passenger door has quit opening. Neither the outside handle or the inside handle will open it.
I had my brother take a look at it who's a mechanic, and he took the door panel off to where the latch was, and tried manually pulling the handle but the door still won't open! Any ideas of what is wrong, or may help to fix it? Thanks.
 












I just got my rear driver side door open today. Took 2 nuts off to swing the seat out of the way for room to pull door panel off.
The problem was the usual broken spring. You will find posts showing this. Open the door opposite the bad one and with a flashlight look in where the mechanism is that holds the door shut. This is just above the child latch. Look for the smallest diameter, wire diameter that is, spring. You will only find the straight part of it as the coil part is hidden. What this spring isn't doing is causing the problem.
Try wiggling/ working parts in that area (of the bad door). Good luck. After the problem door is open you will see where one part is catching on the other. I greased the "catching " area, it worked fine, didn't have time or parts to make a real fix so i called it a day and put everything back together.
Time will tell.
 






Lock Internal Pictures Here

I went through this a short time back on my 96.
The small spring referred to was broken along with a broken larger spring that fell out when I disassembled the lock. If you look at the pictures you can see the larger spring through a hole in the plate. No idea what it does or where it was attached.

At any rate, look at the pictures of the lock internals and it might help you out.
My lock was shot and needed replacing, so I took the old one apart to see how the thing worked. Aside, I also had to replace the electric lock while in there.
The hardest part was getting the panel off from the inside to get ready to start to begin. I hate that.

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3172432#post3172432
 






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