PeteL

I am not getting the sense that the inner door handle is moving any part of the mechanism, as the door is locked. I will try giving it a push...

Geo

Sorry for the delay on the photo....

Geo

The blue circle is where the door lever connects with the inner latch mechanism. When I bought my car, there was a broken piece at the top of that shaft that prevented the door from opening. I doubt that is your problem however since you cannot open from inside either.

The magenta circle is the cable attached between the inside door lever and the inner latch mechanism. What is not visible is how it attaches to the lever that unlatches the door. No way to get the photo of that without taking the whole latching mechanism apart. Sorry.

The green circle is where the inside door lock connects.

KuHL 951

Doesn't it look easy to get your hand in there in that photo? We all know better though. Geo is your lock/unlock rod coming out the top of the door panel missing in that photo?

I suspect the metal lock rod piece on Pete's might be 'under' that plastic piece in the Green circle. This would definitely keep the lock rod from coming up and would probably keep the rest of the stuff from moving also.

marky522

Can i ask why taking the seat out to get the door panel up was ruled out?

Mark

Geo

That is correct. I removed the inside locking mechanisms in my car (a race car) to prevent unintended locking. All locking will have to be done via key in the outside lock.

Campeck

what do you think I try to do on occasion? and all I get is a big flame.....

back to your regularly scheduled problems.

Geo

Remember what I told you a long time ago?.....

There is a fine line between being the class clown and the village idiot. You really don't help yourself sometimes. You forgot or ignored everything we talked about privately.

PeteL

Geo
Thanks for the pic. It seems so easy now. I need to reduce myself to 1/50 of my normal size, and climb down through the lock hole. Voila! problem solved.
I think the holy grail of getting the door panel away from the door (it is impossible to remove it all the way), is going to be the solution. My problem is just north of the blue circle. There is a ball connection to a plastic piece that if I can separate should let me open the door. Is your window removed or is it just up?

PeteL

Actually, I think my problem is on the other side of the window track. It was caused by incorrect re-assembly of the door handle. The green circle is on the side closer to the interior. When I pull back the top of the door panel I can clearly see that side of the mechanism. It is all jammed, but that is due to my mistake on the other side, closer to the handle. I need to undo my mistake, without destroying too much. My problem is near or above the blue circle.

Geo

My window is up.

My concern here is that if it's indeed your door handle, why won't it open from the inside? IIRC, the two should work independently of each other. Sadly, no matter what you do, getting in there to work is a bit of a PITA.

I assume the problem with getting the door panel off is getting the bottom off. Perhaps you could do the following:

1. Remove the passenger seat to have room to work.

2. Remove the lower door trim. The plastic piece. It's just held on my little grippy clips. But my can they grip.

3. I suspect once the lower trim piece is gone you should be able to get to the bottom or the door panel. Unfortunately I cannot confirm this since I cut my door panels up for the race car.

Yabo

umm.. How are you going to ge tto teh screw behind the side of the dash?

KuHL 951

Pete,
It must be door problem week, the door handle I just replaced 3 weeks ago broke on the 83 last night. On top of that the mounting screw on the end fell out and the door handle fell off when the door was closed. How could something so hard to manually manuever into that opening find the perfect angle to fall out? I guess I'll order another one from Todd or anyone parting an early 944. Needless to say I'm becoming very familiar with 944 door panel removal.

PeteL

Geo - I think the way I crossed things up behind the handle is holding the entire lock mechanism jammed. I cannot raise the interior lock and the key does not move fully to unlock from the outside. Since I cannot get the door unlocked, the interior handle will not work. I need to find a way to unlock the door. I am thinking I may be able to get a slim piece of metal behind the door handle and get the lock mechanism free. I will look again at the door panel but I think there are too many screws covered by the car frame when the door is closed.

Geo

I think there is another thing missing from my picture... I think there is a little lever from the door handle to the locking mechanism attached to the latch. And I think it attaches at the top of the green circle. It's been a while since I changed my door handle.