Super, thanks for sharing. Should help alot.

After 251K miles and 24 years, I finally had to do this job on my left side handle last week. Alan's guide is spot on. Wish I had seen it before I went into the door. Took me several hours.

I'll add my experiences to this thread having just completed a replacement. The directions above are wonderful, I figured a few more things out in the process.

Diss-assembly is always the easy bit, just watch for falling parts, I must have run the window up and down a zillion times..

Assembly is the real pain as always.

The biggest pain point for me was the rear hex bold, getting it aligned so as to not strip the threads on the way in. The handle is fairly soft metal and this appears to be easy to do..

So what I did was pull the tape off the handle so it floated free, then with my long hex wrench with a rounded tip I put the bolt into the hole, all the way in.

I could then gently turn the hex wrench while manipulating the door handle to get the right alignment. Once done the rest is cake for that bold. Then put the front one in but be sure to align the handle before snugging the two bolts down.

One gotcha fro the rear bolt.. If you look right below it there is a bracket.. If you drop the bolt in can go behind the bracket and get lodged in there.. As me how I know. I stuffed a rag in from the bottom and "floated" it to the top.. left the rag in there til I was all done :)

All in all not a terrible job, just a major fiddle due to lack of space.

Enjoy!

good idea about filling the small pocket on the inner door with a rag,
as a side note try adding some 3M strip caulk to the bolt head,
then the allen will stick to it and the bolt wont fall off

I will be doing this on the week end.
Thanks for the write up.

I'm not sure if it matters as far as hand position when opening your doors. I tend to apply a little more pressure toward the rear of the handle to open the door versus the front of the handle, which feels like you're stressing the latch. When releasing it, I gently lower the handle back in it's usual resting spot. My handles feel solid for now, but I don't trust them since I don't know if they have ever been replaced before I purchased the car in 2001.

long time lurker here... just broke my left door handle// I think it broke because I rushed to pull it open, while the locks were still unlocking. I've done that before, but it has never broke on me. Also, looking at some of the threads (pics), my handle does NOT look askew from the outside.

Put in my $.02 'cuz this was actually a recent thread!!

...., don,t beat yourself up, I doubt very much if you caused the break, the carrier on the inside of the door is a known weakspot.., it would have developed a stress crack over time and eventually broke, mine did after 20 years ownership !
All sorts of theories have been mentioned regarding " How to open the door" that should never be an issue, it,s a door handle designed to open a door, you should,nt have to plan in what manner..., am I going to use, to open it !

Ken
80 928 S
5 Speed

UK

Has anyone had any symptoms prior to failure? I'm thinking something along the lines of pulling the handle with a little more force than usual to open the door. I noticed on mine that if you apply more pressure toward the rear of the handle (closest to the keyhole), my door opens easier. This is the same for both sides of the car.

Just another Thank-You post. My '91 $$$$4 is going into the shop for a full re-spray soon and I agreeed to do a lot of the dis-asembling of the trim, etc. :banghead: This write up will be invaluable for that and when I try to put it back together. :thumbup: BTW, shouldn't this (along with the add-on hints) be in the permanent how-too's? Thanks again!

For some time I remember weeks/months previous, I noticed a deterioration in the reluctance to open .

Ken
80 928 S
5 Speed

UK

I totally agree with the above statement. For weeks/month prior to complete failure the handle became more and more difficult to open. When the car was cold (just out of the garage) the handle seemed to work, but when when sitting out in the heat of the day, the handle did not work. Finally after a spirited drive on some bumpy roads I heard a rattle in the door (one side of latch inside completely broke off) and the handle no longer worked at all. I was told in another thread that if the handle gets harder and harder to work, it was inevitable a complete failure is coming. Exactly what happened.

I don't agree though that this was a very difficult fix. Especially because of Alan's and another write up. It was little tight, but not too bad at all. Getting the security plate out after loosening the bolts seemed the most difficult, at the time because we failed to bring the glass down. After that, is was easy. I did not reinstall the security plate. I saw no point in having it. The next side will be easy. Removing the reinstalling the door panel takes some time.

but mostly due to motly crew in the cheering section! :icon107::cheers:

EXACTLY! That added about an hour to the process! :roflmao:

Mine was instantaneous and I'd expect that to be fairly normal from the configuration and ultimate classic failure - one day it worked fine the next day nothing. Still moves freely ~ as normal - bit looser at rear end...

Now failure could also be due to handle looseness and in that case missaiignment could lead to increased operating pressure - also stressing the hinge and leading to failure. I'd expect you'd be able to feel some lateral handle movement in this case though ...

Alan