The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk door won't open... frustrated... SOLVED

scrool down to see the way this was fixed!

hello guys. im lost on this one. i have a 63 c10 and was having problems with my drivers side door. basically 2 issues with the door. firstly, i am unable to open the door from the inside at all! i replaced the latch and the arm from the handle to the latch and still no go. i have tried this with the door open and throwing the latch (like it was closed) and still the interior handle does not budge it. looking inside the door at the action when operating the inside handle i see the arm move and it stops just short of the tab on the latch that opens the door. remember the latch, handle, and arm are all new and correct from chevy duty.

second issue. the exterior door handle. the button to open the door has to be pushed in soo far that the button goes past the lip (hope this makes sense) and you have to work it around to pop back out to the normal position.

the first issue is very fristrating and i am required to roll the window down to get the door open... the second is a PITA but not as much. any helpfull advice guys?

Sounds like you either have the wrong arm or latch. Try a good original, rather than repop.

being as i just dropped $80 on a new latch and arm I would like to get some more advice. especially since I was having this problem with the stock latch and arm. is their somehting else i can look for here guys?

Seems like everybody i've heard of that got repro door innard hardware had to do some adjusting and fiddiling to get it to work right.. and some don't ever get it to work right, they just make due till they can find original parts to replace them with.

Lets hope somebody else who bought the same repop parts for the same model year comes along and tells you how they had to bend/sand/adjust/grind the crap repro parts to work (sorta) properly.

TROY you mentioned you had the same problem with the stock hardware,and you also said the outer handle button sticks in.it sounds like your problem may be the outer handle.! now I have not had mine apart for a while so I can'nt quite remember,but if I can recall the outer has a button with a pin that pushes straight out to a tab on the latch. so what might be happening is the outer gets you in the truck but does not release the latch all of the way leaving it half latched!(still with me) good!.now you try to get out the latch is in the wrong position the inner can reach its target(NO CIGAR)try removing the outer handle and try the inner again and don't worry who will win!

for the outside handle -

don't the push buttons use a spring mechanism? If so, the spring may not be of the correct force - you might find an old one you had, compare the two, see if it takes more force to push one or the other. Something like that, maybe?

thanks guys

Fumblin46: yeah thats what i was hoping for...

Bent and Hardy: the spring on the door button is good... its that it has to push in too far (all the way inside the button hole)in order to hit the tab and open. its then hanging on the lip the handle has that keeps the button from coming all the way out of the hole. make more sense? i think i need to do some bending and comparing and testing on this.

if its not one thing its another with this truck just wish I had more time for all this...

Sounds just like a bit of bending will get it neighbor.

is your door handle mechanisim that the inside handle mounts to good? something might be messed on that thing that you can not turn the handle as far as it should go
Nate

Troy, your welcome to drive you truck to my shop and park it side by side to my 63 and measure and compare everthing since it's doors work fine. Sometimes this will show what one can't see without comparing. The truck is under construction and has the door latches in place but no window mechanisms so everything should be very visible. Evan

I have a similar problem on the Driver's side door of my '50, but it's because the door hinge pins are getting worn out and the door sags a bit. Since the latch plate doesn't match up to the mechanism very well it takes more handle turn to get the thing to open. I realize the mechanism is differant here but sometimes the cause isn't what it seems.

ok. well i got around to doing some more investigating on this today and found the problem. the mounts for the control arm from the handle to the latch are adjustable. adjusting this to the max solved the problem with the inside handle and the outside button! hope this helps someone else.