Sliding Door Woes

[andynods]

Hi All,

I am wondering if you can help. I am hoping to go camping in about ten days time and may not be able to go if I cannot sort out my sliding door!

Basically, the door is a bad fit as it has been badly repaired at the bottom six inches and so this is in play. However, it has been like that since I had it (six years) so I know that is not all it is.

The door has deteriorated over time from closing fine, to needing a good slam, to the 'turn the handle up to pull it in' becoming less effective to the point now where it either won't close at all or pops open (front and back) as you are driving along. You are rarely able to get further than a few hundred yards, often a lot less!

I am trying to remember whether it got worse when I got the sills replaced last year - I just can't remember - but I thought I would mention it as maybe there is something to do with this causing things to not line up. I do think that if it had been a problem straight afterwards, I would have associated it with the new sill alignment so I do not think this is it either.

So far, I had the MOT garage (they know their VW's) take a look, who said they had made it better but then it only lasted a few miles (better than before) and then back to square one. I then got my VW aircooled specialist to take a look as part of the service. He spent two days on tweaking alignment and getting it better but I picked it up last night and no better really. He said it wasn't great as the door was misshaped (but has always been like that and problem not always existed) and the mechanisms were shot. He was describing how hard these parts might be to find.

Any ideas?

I would even be interested in a way to permanently lock the door so it cannot be used so I can go away and use the other doors.

I just cannot drive any distance with it popping open or with it tied shut with rope!

 

[Moseley]

Try popping the seal off that runs around it - the door should be a lot easier to close with this out of the way, and you might have more of a fighting chance of working out which part isn't functioning properly.

 

[Moseley]

I should add to the above - when we first got our van, the door never did the 'rear pull in' part. I took the mechanism off and cleaned it all up and re-lubed it on the bench. Basically, part of the mechanism had seized, but once freed off and cleaned, it worked like new.

Definitely worth doing this, as any adjustments you make to the rollers etc will be wasted if the mechanism isn't doing it's job.

 

[andynods]

And some pictures from my dropbox account...

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/dlf8dgt91237j7y/AADdI3BFG-_xdQYSLgCOel-Ma?dl=0

 

[Trikky2]

It sounds like the latch mechanism on the back edge of the door needs fixing. It works just like a normal door latch except it also has the pull in feature from the handle.

If its popping open it means this latch is not staying engaged. Try removing and cleaning it. if still no joy then replacement is probably your best option and there's plenty of second hand ones out there. It's the doors that can be hard to find, not the latches.

In the short term as an emergency fix you can attach an ordinary locking bolt like you would use on a shed door. Fix it to the sliding doors rear inner edge so that it clears the rear pillar when in the open position but overlaps the pillar when in the closed position. Check carefully that it will clear the body when you open the door though since you don't want it scratching the body when you slide the door open.

 

[andynods]

All the pics have uploaded to that folder now. Took ages.

Thanks Trikky2

I think you are right. The rear catch seems to work if you can trick it into operating when the door is not closed. But when the door is closed you can feel that the latch is simply not quite going around the part on the van. Like the door is the wrong height or something...?

This image shows this well.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/slqns8r1aemkuyp/20150513_094308.jpg?dl=0

 

[Dickie524]

I had similar issues, and asomething as simple as re-lubing ALL the moving parts made a MASSIVE difference - like the difference between working and not working. The rear latch in particular made the most difference and I didn't even have to disassemble it. Just plenty of WD40!

 

[Trikky2]

All the pics have uploaded to that folder now. Took ages.

Thanks Trikky2

I think you are right. The rear catch seems to work if you can trick it into operating when the door is not closed. But when the door is closed you can feel that the latch is simply not quite going around the part on the van. Like the door is the wrong height or something...?

This image shows this well.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/slqns8r1aemkuyp/20150513_094308.jpg?dl=0

Yes the U shape in the latch needs to line up with the post on the pillar. Just like on a normal door catch, the U should slide over the post but without it lifting the door.

Both the catch and the post have some adjustment to get them aligned just right. If this adjustment is not enough then the door itself is sitting too high or too low.

The height of the door itself is set by the mechanism that slides along the rail under the window and there is also a small amount of adjustment available where this mechanism attaches to the door.

Note that if you do have to adjust the height of the rear of the door, it may then put it out of square in relation to the door aperture. This then needs to be compensated for by adjusting the bottom roller on the leading edge of the door.

 

[andynods]

You have all been great. This gives me a place to start!

 

[Grazy]

http://www.ratwell.com/technical/SlidingDoor.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Check this mate

 

[andynods]

Had a little go today. Adjusted the height of the catch on the pillar at the rear of the door. I moved it up a little and then, with pulling in the rods behind the door card (quite hard) the latch pulls the door in and seems to hold it. Need to test properly tomorrow. At least this means that you can drive it without the door opening, even if it means the door will largely be unopened as it is such a faff!

Not sure if I can adjust rods so the handle can do what I'm doing by hand. At present I'm doing manually what the handle mechanism won't do.

 

[Little_Nav]

Had similar issues with mine.....would need a hefty slam half a dozen times before it would shut and the rear latch gouged a chunk out of the adjcent panel over a period of time.
All seemed to be operating ok, but seemed abit stiff so I scraped all the old lube out of the bottom channel and sliding arm channel......incredible how grim the crud that came out of it was! liberally sprayed both channels and the handle mech, latches and arms with lithium grease and gave it a few runs along the track. Now slides and locks with a gentle flick of the wrist......huge difference for about ten minutes graft lol

 

[Matt48]

yes lubrication!!