The outside door handles are getting worse and worse. They're old, and getting crankier. More and more, you have to pull up rather than out, to the point where I have to help some of my friends get in. Is there anything I can do about this?
sorry for the rapid fire posting. i've been meaning to ask these q's for a month now and kept forgetting.
-Myren
Have you tried taking off the interior door panel to oil the door handles and their linkages?
You can buy new hinges from VW, mine came unpainted so I just threw rust primer on them. Drive out the old pins, bolt on the new ones and drive the pins back in. Fixed my sagging 86 Jetta. Pneumatic tools help. I also did the dissasemble and lithium grease all the parts, it helps a lot.
A common failure of the door handle mechanism is that the two rivets that allow the lift bar to actuate the latch rust away. Typically the rivet closest to the rear edge of the door breaks or falls out. If you remove the door panel you can easily see and understand the way the latch operates. Although lubricating everything is a good idea, no mechanical part ever died from overlubrucation, if the rivet is failing you may replace it either with a new rivet, a new handle, or tap it 5mm and install a screw and washers using locktite on the tapped portion to keep the crew from turning.
Tighten all the stuff that has worked loose over the years, window regulator, for example.
Bob
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