1989 Vanden Plas Help

Jack, Welcome to one of the weak points of these cars. The answer to your question as the whether they can be repaired is Yes and No. It all depends upon where and how they are broken. These door handles break at the legs on either the frame piece or the lift piece of the assembly. The lift being the actual handle you lift, the frame being the large rectangular mount that fits into the door. Whether it can be repaired is strictly a matter of where the leg broke off. These handles are made of "pot" or "white" metal which is extremely porous and basically a junk metal casting. There is no effective way to weld, epoxy or otherwise glue the pieces to together. The most effective means has been to re-build the broken piece using a steel support. On the frame part, which is the easiest to fix, I took an old computer hard drive mounting rail made of steel, flattened it with a hammer and bent it into a U shape or an L shape depending upon how bad the brake is. I then mounted this L piece with one leg running across the frame housing and the other up the broken leg. I drilled tiny holes through the both legs of the L and through the door piece and used tiny nuts and bolts to secure it. I found that using an Epoxy between the pieces helps immensely because it adds strength, but the epoxy cannot do the job alone. Once the assembly was put together, I drilled my hole for the hinge rod and re-assembled.

The lift can be done the same way, but the tolerances are far greater. If you are in a situation that I have found myself to be in and there is not enough metal to make this work, you will have to purchase an unbroken handle. Ebay often has decent parts as do junk yards. You should not pay more than $50 - $60 for an unbroken assembly and usually much less. I have the name and address of a friend who is breaking apart a few of these XJ40's and may have the handles you need.

Remember two things when shopping for handles:

1: Each door handle is unique!! In other words, a Left Rear will NOT work on a right rear door and vice versa. You can ONLY use a handle that came off the specific door you need 2: Door handles for your 1989 are ONLY interchangeable with door handles off of '88 and '89 XJ40s. There are some '87 XJ40s that have the proper handles but only in the UK and Canada and they must be the XJ40 style, not the XJ6 Series III.

Webserve

"Jack Kelly" wrote in message news:6hUWa.8953$tf.7724@lakeread03...

Dear Webserve,

Thank you for the advice...sounds like something I can undertake...I've had to repair and rebuild door latches on several pre WWII American cars and if you take your time and fiddle around with found parts it all seems to work in the end.

Thanks again!

Regards,

Jack Kelly