Sliding door handle and latch woes

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Mont

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I'm looking to replace the door handle on my sliding door as I've just bought a full new matching door handle set. It's a 1971 LHD early bay, but I cannot get the old handle out. Am I missing something?

I unscrewed a plastic piece on the inside of the door and thought it was just a case of tapping the door handle out, but it wouldn't budge. A fait bit of WD40 and a few strikes from a rubber mallet would move it an inch out but no more.

So I unscrewed the two cables that connect to the door latch and unscrewed the door latch from the door, thinking there might be something behind the latch that needs removed, but the latch doesn't come off either - it just moves out a little from the door like it's jammed on something :?

The latch looks very similar to this

004.jpg


When I decided to give up for the day I reattached the latch, replaced the cables and slid the door closed, but it wouldn't re-open again with the rear latch sticking on the striker plate. The only way I could open the door was to unbolt the striker plate from the inside :oops:

Any help would be really handy. Not sure if it's just properly stuck in the door, or there's something daft that I'm missing....
 
I took some pics today.











There's def something stopping the handle coming out but I can't figure out what or how to release it.

I found this instruction on the VW Service Manual but that didn't help either. Oh and I've no key for this handle either. Any help would be greatly appreciated as this is really starting to frustrate me.

 
The outer handle is held in place by the inner handle. The square rod that goes through the mechanism is all that stops it from just dropping off, so this should just slide out through the mechanism.

I would screw the lock back to the door, put a sacrificial screw back into the end of the square rod and then give it a few clean taps with a mallet. Just make sure you have your knee or whatever hard against the outside of the door as you don’t want to put undue pressure on the hinge and rollers when hitting it. I imagine it is just stuck fast with years of hardened grease and grime. A bit of mallet action should break it free (be prepared that it might fly out at speed, so see if you can get a washer underneath the screw to stop it from coming all the way off).


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Thanks for the advice. I'd left it for a couple of weeks to get on with other things, but got back to the handle today. I tried the sacrificial screw and banged it with a mallet but it still wouldn't budge. I ended up cutting the shaft of the handle off with a hacksaw.

I was pretty happy that it was finally off but unfortunately previous prying at the latch mechanism seems to have damaged the internals of it :cry: Can the latches be sent anywhere for repair?

It would seem to be a mechanism for an 8/67-7/70 van.
 
Bumping this one back to the top again. Unfortunately work had stopped on the van the past few months - a combination of life getting in the way, lost momentum and some lack of motivation on my part. These lock mechanisms are like a dark art to me and getting very frustrating. Does anyone repair/service these?

Thanks to a member on here I was able to get my hands on a replacement door mechanism like the one in the top pic, however, when I connect it to the sliding door, and connect it to the metal rods I still have trouble getting the door to work properly.

The door will close but when I operate the handles (inside and outside) I can't get the door to open. The bottom 'hook' doesn't really lift much when I use the handle, not as far as I think would open the door (as circled in this pic). It locks ok when lifting the handle upwards.

IMG-2022.jpg


Also the rear mechanism (centre lock) doesn't always release itself from the striker plate at the rear of the sliding door. Does anyone have a pic of the inside of the centre lock that I can use to compare to mine to see if something is missing? ie the other side of this?

Screenshot-2019-07-30-at-22-21-17.png


I've tried adjusting the screws at the rods as mentioned in the service manual using screws through the pin holes in the mechanism to secure the rods but doesn't help. The door itself is in the same position as it's always been in and worked using the old handle and mechanism. The interior of the van had been painted with the old mechanisms and striker plates on so I've been easily able to line everything up to the same position as the old ones were in.
 

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