Drivers door will not open!

[Fantasymon]

I've had this problem for about 3 weeks now. I've googled and searched this site and come across many people having variations of the same problem. However I was not able to come up with a solution. It is a PAIN to have to crawl through the passenger side door to get in and out of my explorer so I really want to fix this.

I have taken the panel off the door from the inside, shined a flashlight in there, and can not figure out how to manually trigger the mechanism to open the door. The locks seem to work fine, the door just literally will not open. From the outside when I lift the handle, there is no resistance. From the inside, everything feels right when I try to open the door, it just does not unlatch.

The only screw I can see is a "Star" screw. Should I take this off? It looks like it is a part of the locking mechanism.

Any help would be appreciated. I even took my passenger side panel off to try and understand the opening mechanism but didn't help much.

I have a 2000 4 door explorer.

Thanks
grantp

 

[Fantasymon]

Well I went and bought a Haynes manual and a star hex socket. I got the star screw loose (there was a lot of torque behind it) and turned and turned and turned and it wouldn't come out. It eventually got harder to turn as I kept going. It was spinning fine, I'm just not sure what the function of the screw is or what it is holding in place.

I am at a loss of what to do now and looks like I may have to take it to the dealership. This will only be the second time in 10 years I will have taken this explorer to the dealership and can't believe it is for something so stupid like a stuck door.

 

[scucci]

You're problem sounds like the door latch return spring is broken. Since you have taken the door panel off, it should be easy to open the door. There is a rod that connects to the outside door handle, and the other end has threads and is clipped by a white and yellow clip on a lever at the door latch. If the broken spring is causing your problem you can:
1 Pull up on the rod connected to the outside handle and hold it up.
2 Pull up on the manual door lock,
3 Open the door from the inside handle.

If that works you can temporarily hook up a light spring to hold up the rod until you can get a new latch. The spring allows the door latch to unlock.

picture of door latch and part number:
Inside the door the latch. See photo halfway down on the following thread:
http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=165081&highlight=door+latch&page=3

Picture of the door handle rod and yellow/white clip:
http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=165081

 

[Fantasymon]

Thanks for the response.

I actually fixed it earlier tonight by just turning and turning the star screw bolt.
It was probably not the most ideal way to fix it, but it worked.
Basically the star screw was to the large bolt the latch clips onto when you shut the door. By removing this, it manually opened the door. I think I may have bent part of the latch while doing this, but so far everything seems to work fine and I can open my door from the inside and outside. I just sprayed a bunch of WD40 on the latch.

It was definitely worth spending several hours on this instead of paying over $300 at Ford. All it cost me was $5 for the star socket and $20 for the Haynes manual (which I didn't really need).

So if anybody found this through searching and you can't get your driver door opened after trying everything:

1. Take the panel off
2. Get a T-50 star socket wrench
3. Locate the star bolt that goes through the latch.
4. Loosen the bolt all the way
5. Pull door open.
6. WD40 the latch and bolt
7. With the door open, screw the star bolt back in place
8. Shut door and make sure it latches onto the bolt
9. If you can now open the door, you have fixed the problem.

-Grantp