How to fix inop outside door handles

Hey guy's. I've seen several posts around regarding outside door handles not working. My passangers side handle on my deuce also did not work. Yesterday while letting the coolant cool down after a flush, I decided to fix it. The fix is easy, the hardest part is getting the mechanism in and out of the door.

Tools required:
Phillips screw driver (I used a screw gun)
Vise Grips
Hammer
Punch

That's it!

1.) Roll the window up.
2.) Remove the access panel on the bottom of the door.
3.) Remove the 3 screws holding the bolt carrier. (There are 2 on the side of the door and one inside the door.
4.) Remove the 2 screws holding the outside door handle in and pull the handle out, it's just a square post.
5.) Remove the 3 screws holding the inside door handle support plate and also the one holding the handle on, then remove the handle. The mechanism is now loose and ready to be removed.

You're fighting some rigging for the window mechanism and such and very large fore arms may not do the trick. What worked well for me was trying to drop the bolt side first then bring the inside handle side down behind it. The mechanism comes out easiest towards the back of the door. Once you have the mechanism removed you see how it all works, it's fairly simple. The inside door handle DIRECTLY pulls the bolt, so it alway's works. The ouside handle has a cam pushing against a little tab which pushes the bolt against the spring. This tab is usually bent up or worn out as shown in the first picture below. You can reinsert the outside handle, turn it, and watch the cam go under the tab. That won't work well. Now is also a good time to lube the mechanism up.

6.) Pull the bolt back as far as you can and hold it there with vise grips clamped to hold it retracted.
7.) You can see the cam and tab in the second pic. Put a punch on the tab and hammer it back down a little.
8.) Now retest the mechanism, should work fine now.
9.) Now just re-snake the mechanism back up into the door and screw it all back together. Watch for the orientation of the triangular plate for the inside handle. I installed the inside handle first to help line it all back up.

If this isn't the problem sometimes the cam is rounded out from the outside handle where you would need a new mechanism. But, typically this is the problem and it's a fairly easy fix to add ALOT more convenience if it hasn't been working.

-Kelly

Awesome! Thanks a bunch!

I have muscular arms and could not fit them inside the door.But anyways, these pictures were helpful. Thanks

Thanks Kelly for the photos and text, my handles work but they are sticky, and I wrote a post about that earlier this week. Now I can cofidenly tear into the door latch and handles confidently! Thanks again!

John

When I first wrote the write up about just bending the tab a little more to help it keep contact it worked great for me for about 6 months. http://www.steelsoldiers.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=5019Then it started to let the paw slide back under the tab. A lot of it had to do with who was using the door handle. I could open it just fine, but people unknowing, would just twist away at it and it would eventually pop under the tab. So after rebending the tab 2 more times back down to make contact, I decided to do the welded bead fix http://www.steelsoldiers.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=7236&highlight= That has worked much better and has lasted me over a year without problems no mater who reffes on the door handle. I've been working on writing it into an article to submit for Military Vehicles Magazine as it seems to be a common problem with deuces who had some 18 year old private pulling on the handles for the last 30-40 years.

Also, it is quite a bit easier to pull the latch from the door if you pull the door glass out and lower the window crank all the way to the bottom. It them makes plenty of room to stick your arm up into the door to get the latch. Taking the glass out only involves removing the 2 C clips from the arms, and the two window stops on each end that are held by 2 screws each. All in all it adds about an extra 2 minutes to the disassembly and to the reassembly process, but makes a big difference in getting your arm up into the door.

another good door latch repair thread. i should try this sometime this week

subscribing!!!! I need to do this ASAP

This is great info. The outside handle on my drivers door has been broken for 6 months or more, and tonight I finally decided to give it a shot.
Removing the glass was no big deal once I figured out how the clips come off. They just slide to the side and pop off.
Getting the lock mechanism out was no prob, just removed the screws and it pretty much fell out.
Fixing the mechanism was also no big deal (thanks to the pics).
Getting it back up into the door however was the toughest part of the job. I just couldn't get my arm far enough up to get it into position. I ended up using one of those flexible gripper tools from the top. Once I got a couple screws in and it was lined up the rest was smooth sailing.

Hopefully it will last a while. It's great not having to crawl across from the passenger side to open the drivers door!

Great write up, thanks!

My pass. side door latch stop working so I bought a new one,it worked for a week and did the same thing as the first one.So I took the new one out to find what was wrong it was that tab.So I took it all a part and bent the tab more to make it work.Wish I did it on the old one would have saved me $60.00.

Always check that the spring is not broken, that is what happened to my M37. Midwest Military had the spring.

Today's Experience

Let me first thank each contributor for this helpful thread.

I just finished repairing both my handles and thought some may benefit from my experience. On the first one I hammered the tab down as instructed but the latch didn’t survive the pre-install test. I then noticed that the body of the latch was out of square which resulted in extra slop. Using the truck bumper as an anvil, I squared the face of the latch with the body and I bend down just a tad the tab that the bolt slides against. I did the same with the other latch. It was further out of square but was actually tighter fitting. So far so good. The re-square just takes a few whacks of a hammer and I would highly recommend you to do this while you have it out. Also during the reinstall be sure to assemble loosely with all screws then tighten each a little at a time so you won’t be pulling it out of shape again.

Putting everything back together was a chore as my arm would not fit in the door even though I removed both the window and the regulator (I left it loose in the door). This was well worth the added work. I doubt I could have done the job if I hadn’t taken these extra steps. The best advice I can give on the reinstall is draft someone with skinny forearms to do it for you.

Ron

I bought two new mechanisms for my doors and plan to repair the old ones and keep them for spares. I like to install new screws when doing projects like this. (Some of the old ones are semi-stripped anyway.) It seems like the large screws for the door mech. and the small ones for the access panel are a non-standard size. I checked at the hardware store and neither English or metric would work. I searched the forum and didn't find the size.

What size are the screws for the door latch mechanism and the access panel?

Flyingvan911 said:

.................It seems like the large screws for the door mech. and the small ones for the access panel are a non-standard size. I checked at the hardware store and neither English or metric would work. I searched the forum and didn't find the size.

What size are the screws for the door latch mechanism and the access panel?

Click to expand...

Better late info than no-info...
1) Door latch: 6x machine screw, dome head, assembled lock-washer, 7/32"-24tpi x L=3/4"
2) Access cover: 6x sheet metal screw, dome head, #10 x L=1/2"

G.

Thanks.

Subscribed, need to try this.

My driver's side latch just failed last week. Found the clock spring had broken- no money this month for a new assembly, made a temporary replacement by carefully re-winding a brake shoe spring to a useful shape. It has about half the force of the original, but will push the bolt out to hold the door closed as I drive (I have also installed seatbelts). Don't like doing that kinda work, but no cash and want to drive it!

I replaced my drivers door mechanism on my m818.
i did not find or reinstall a bold on the inside, as has been mentioned.
I did find that releasing the clips and pulling window to top gave me some more room.
on mine the latch part would not go passed the window track. I had to maneuver the second halve vertical and then twist enough to get latch to pass by the track. Not as fun in 103 heat but I got it, except for getting the second tab back onto window track.

Thanks, worked perfectly