Greetings all,
Recently, the inside door-opening mechanism failed on my '97 XLT right rear door. Having recently replaced my driver's door latch (the broken spring problem), I suspected the latch was the problem. Removing the door panel and poking about, I discovered that although the inside handle is fine, it no longer pushes the rod quite far enough to unlatch both the upper and lower latch jaws. Sometimes just the upper jaw opens; usually neither. If I grab the connected rod and help it by pushing it toward the latch, both jaws open without a problem.
Ideally, I would be able to adjust the rod length as is possible with the rod that attaches to the external handle, but that does not appear possible.
Two questions:
1) Anybody else had this problem? Is it due to simple wear in the latch mechanism? Or something else?
2) Assuming the latch needs to be replaced, are there instructions for replacing a rear door latch available (similar to those in the sticky post above for the replacing a front door latch)? In particular, it's not obvious how to get the window track out to the way, since it extends all the way to the top of the door (I think).
Any other advice/thoughts would be most appreciated.
Cheers,
...Derek
Recently, the inside door-opening mechanism failed on my '97 XLT right rear door. Having recently replaced my driver's door latch (the broken spring problem), I suspected the latch was the problem. Removing the door panel and poking about, I discovered that although the inside handle is fine, it no longer pushes the rod quite far enough to unlatch both the upper and lower latch jaws. Sometimes just the upper jaw opens; usually neither. If I grab the connected rod and help it by pushing it toward the latch, both jaws open without a problem.
Ideally, I would be able to adjust the rod length as is possible with the rod that attaches to the external handle, but that does not appear possible.
Two questions:
1) Anybody else had this problem? Is it due to simple wear in the latch mechanism? Or something else?
2) Assuming the latch needs to be replaced, are there instructions for replacing a rear door latch available (similar to those in the sticky post above for the replacing a front door latch)? In particular, it's not obvious how to get the window track out to the way, since it extends all the way to the top of the door (I think).
Any other advice/thoughts would be most appreciated.
Cheers,
...Derek
