HDKdesigner

Well, this is about the 6th time I've had to fix my door handle, so clearly I'm doing something wrong or something else is misadjusted or broken. First of all, I want to clarify that my interior door handle works flawlessly every time, so the issue involves the exterior handle exclusively. The exterior door handle has never worked perfectly since I've owned the car, but it stopped working altogether a little while ago. The first time I tried to fix it I dropped the plastic piece, outlined in green in the photo above, inside the door. I was too lazy and frustrated to take the door panel off at the time, so I just ordered another one. In the process of installing the new one, I broke the inner door handle linkage, which is outlined in purple, so I had to buy a new one of those (this one:http://944online.com/index.php/inner...e-linkage.html). I bought a new door handle trigger as well because that piece looked worn. Essentially, all the functional bits of my door handle are brand new. That being said, when I adjust the green piece (The one pictured is a longer version I made from the two extra I had, but it didn't work, so I just used my remaining normal one in my "final" adjustment) to the correct length where it lined up with the ball joint, pulling the exterior door trigger didn't push the arm outlined in red down far enough to open the door. Pulling the door trigger results in roughly half a centimeter of vertical movement of the inner linkage and ball socket (purple and green). When I adjust the green piece all the way down the linkage (purple) so that it was being held on by about two threads, it held the arm outlined in red so far down that it interfered with the door locks. This was the only position that didn't require multiple trigger presses and excessive yanking on the door handle to get it open, but it made it impossible to unlock the door. I sprayed everything with WD-40 and tried again and it only required a mild amount of force to the key to get the door to unlock. Everything worked fine like this for a few days, but last night I couldn't get the door to unlock from the inside or the outside. Now I need to figure out how to, firstly, get the door open and, secondly, adjust it so that both the handle and locks work for once. Hopefully, you guys could follow all of this and have a great idea on how to make everything work properly. As far as I can tell, either the door handle parts I bought are crap, although they seem to be the same as the originals, or there is something else besides the inner door linkage and ball socket (purple and green) that needs to be adjusted, but I have no idea what that might be. Any help will be greatly appreciated!

968workaholic

My guess is there is another worn piece on the exterior door handle that's not giving you enough vertical movement to open the latch properly. Making the black ball socket longer is only a temporary fix as you have already found out. The only way to really fix it is to take both handles off and compare the linkage movement side by side. Then you will be able to see what is worn out on the driver's side. It's a real pain because it takes some time to get both handles off, but it's better than pulling your hair out every time you try and open your driver's door.

HDKdesigner

I was hoping there would be a simpler solution, but I guess I'm going to have to break down and do what you suggested. Thanks for the reply!