before taking it all apart and not being able to repair, i decided to pull apart a car in the local breakers, a traditional scrap yard where they let you do what you like to the cars to be honest, and its pay a few quid back at the gate for anything you want to take off yourself
so with my small socket set i managed to find a 2002 X in the breakers, however, the drivers door card had already been removed and was on the ground all scratched up, as was the chrome handle which was still in it , bum , i thought , but wait a second, i wonder if the back door has the same handle parts ? to my amazement , the rear doors have exactly the same handles as the front doors, and by default, the rears get much less use, especially compared to the drivers door
a few plastic tabs and away the handle came from the door car , yes, the handle is mounted in the card, and not to the frame of the door , strange but true
below is the removed replacement handle as it comes out of the door card , the securing tabs can also be seen ,
IMG_0205 by MyPix on Talk Photography
this is the other side, where the cable pull to the lock locates
IMG_0206 by MyPix on Talk Photography
as it turned out, my belden cable lock cable was also damaged at the handle end, some of the locating plastic had broken away , i had however taken the one from the donor car as well
IMG_0203 by MyPix on Talk Photography
onto repairing my car
the door card is held with three screws, one behind the cover tab behind the door puller, and there are two on the bottom , then a gentle tug and away the door card comes, most of the clips will get left behind or break, i also had some spares of these, then the door pull cable can be removed from the handle on the door card , this allows the door card to swing free with the wiring still attached, but if gives you enough to be able to work on things,
then it was remove the broken handle, again , the tabs were gently prised and out the handle popped, it had indeed broken the central spring which keeps the handle inwards , the replacement unit was installed and then i had to remove the old belden cable section
IMG_0204 by MyPix on Talk Photography
this is done by using a small screwdriver on the lock in the door jamb section , exposing the cable end and manovering it so it comes out of the holder, install the new one and thread it back to the top of the door as the above picture
then its locate the cable in the new door handle
i had previously removed the door clips, relocated all of them and sprayed a little wd40 in the retainers to aid assembly ,
offered up the door card and gently pushed home the clips
wound down the window to check i hadn't trapped anything and then with the window open ( just in case ) i shut the door to test the lock, both handle and all locking scenarios worked perfectly
so , all in all it took less than an hour and i have a working handle salvaged from the back door of a scrap car
BB
