DoorGirl

The outside, driver's side door handle lost all its tension. It "flaps" in the wind and lifts almost all the way up before the door finally opens. Before I had a chance to fix it, the door stopped locking. The lock only goes about half way down but isnt secure. The car is always unlocked. This is extremely worry some because of the fact that the handle flaps in the wind so the door has the possibility of coming open while I am driving down the highway.

What is wrong? How do I fix it?


Thanks!

Bert

You'll have to take the door panel off and see what came loose inside. There's linkages inside and the only way to tell what it is, and fix it, is to remove the panel.

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Bert

DoorGirl

The door panel is now off. I thought it would be obvious what is broken, but I have not spent enough time looking at the inside of doors to see what is wrong and how it should look.

Can you give me any ideas what I should be looking for??

jwko

There are springs on both sides of the handle at the hinge points. If the outside handle will still open the door, its probably the spring assemblies.

If spring assemblies are broken, you'll have to replace the handle assembly.



REMOVAL

Remove the door trim panel.
Remove the watershield.



Remove the outside door handle.

Disconnect the front door latch to door handle rod.
Drill out the two rivets and remove the outside door handle.

NOTE: The front door window glass must be completely up.



To install, reverse the removal procedure.

Use Heavy-Duty Riveter to install the rivets.

Bert

Those springs may very well be broken but for the handle to lift way up to open the door, that item #1 in JWKOs post could need adjusting.

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Bert

DoorGirl

I believe that will fix the handle problem. It seems to match what seems wrong and will make the drivers door look like the rest of the doors on the explorer.

However, I still have not fixed the lock. The bar the actually pulls the lock down seems to not be able to move down any further. once i pulled the panel off, i pulled the bar down myself and was not able to move it into the lock position. Any ideas on how I can fix this myself?