• Welcome to the Contour Enthusiasts Group, the best resource for the Ford Contour and Mercury Mystique.

    You can register to join the community.

outside driver's door handle starting to wear out

A

astral

CEG'er
Joined
Aug 13, 2009
Messages
51
Location
SE Michigan (Monroe)
my outside driver's door handle is starting to wear out... it mostly works right for now... operative words being "for now..." Has this ever happened to anyone else...? how did you fix it if it did.... i'm tired of looking like i'm trying to break into my own car.... is there something that could be just coming loose that i can tighten up or something like that...? or is more of a "go to a junkyard, find the part, and replace the darned thing" type of repair...? anyone know?
 
astral said:
my outside driver's door handle is starting to wear out... it mostly works right for now... operative words being "for now..." Has this ever happened to anyone else...? how did you fix it if it did.... i'm tired of looking like i'm trying to break into my own car.... is there something that could be just coming loose that i can tighten up or something like that...? or is more of a "go to a junkyard, find the part, and replace the darned thing" type of repair...? anyone know?
Click to expand...


what is it doing?

I have this problem with mine, it like, pulls out to much and sometimes is very hard to open the door, only from the outside. its like something had broke, maybe a spring or something, i thin ki broke it in the winter, it froze and i yanked on it and her something break haha.

i havent fixed it yet or even looked at it
 
going to have to pull the door handle and check out the mechanism. I know the inside handle uses a cable to the lock, and then a rod iirc. I forget how the outside handle is connected.
 
Mine was also really hard to open. The two hinge setups on the front doors have a brass ring pressed into them and the hinge pin goes into them. If the brass piece wears out(99% do) the door will sag ever so slightly causing the latch side to drop. Just a 1/8" of sag in the door will cause this "hard to open" situation. I changed the upper hinge on two contours with hinges from low mile contys and it took away a wierd sqeek I had in the door and got rid of the hard-open. Works good as new.


If you open your door, grab it by the B-pillar window surround and pull the door up and down, see if there is play there. If so, try the hinge swap.
 
to be more descriptive of the problem like i was asked to be.... it doesn't matter if the door is locked or not... i can walk up to the driver's door, pull up on the handle and nothing happens.... this had happened once in a great while before, but yesterday (of course she starts throwing a fit when i use her to go pick up a hottie...) when i was walking around to my door after opening the passenger door for a purty young thing i haven't seen in almost a year the i go to open mine and nothing happens... i keep trying for a minute as she's inside giggling..... and finally she had to open the door from the inside to let me in... but later last night it worked again for a quick second....

it doesn't matter if i pull gently, pull hard... pull cockide (like more from one side or the other) or any other way... it just seems to have stopped opening the door most of the time...

ok.... thanks all... i have a feeling Brapple's right and i might have to take the panel off from inside and have a look see... Blu may be right as well considering my SVT's a 98 and has close to 200K... (181 is pretty close IMO).... so luckily there are a bunch of conty's at the u-pull-it jy i go to....

so i just got up and wanted to see if anyone had some ideas to try today... and when i am ready and leaving i will try blu's idea and see if the hinges might be wearing out..... anyone got any other thoughts??
 
The hinges are specific also, passenger door hinges don't work on drivers side so if you end up needing one, get the same one from a JY car. 10mm wrench, hammer, maybe a flat screwdriver and a needle nose pliars. Good luck!
 
On my handle. the "rod" inside is rubbing up against the door handle itself. I straighten it up, but it doesn't last. Eventually will need to replace it, maybe a winter break project. :shrug:

That, or stop having a navigator sitting next to me. :laugh:
 
Pull the door inner door skin off and watch what the mechanism is doing while you pull up on the handle. It's a pretty simple design and easy to fix. PB Blast on the door latch does wonders as well. I had one that was tricky and just sprayed the latch and everything felt like brand new again.
 
blu_fuz said:
The hinges are specific also, passenger door hinges don't work on drivers side so if you end up needing one, get the same one from a JY car. 10mm wrench, hammer, maybe a flat screwdriver and a needle nose pliars. Good luck!
Click to expand...

thanks for the advice... i've found that this was the problem as it's kinda intermittant right now... but when it's acting up if i push the door up a little it works fine... i've got a jy with a million conty's in it (just no SVTs darn it!!) so at least i can use that from one of them... thanks blu!!
 
Doh! My drivers door did the same thing today. I opened the door but something didnt feel right and now the outside latch doesnt do anything. Hopefully I'll have a chance to pull the panel this weekend (and replace the speaker while I'm at it) and the problem will be obvious.
 
On mine, the silver rod that goes from the outside door handle to the latch at the door (thing that releases to open door) was not pushing down far enough. Not sure why, but I was able to put a bolt/nut under the place where the silver rod should hit to give it additional room. This was after I tried to lengthen the rod by changing the bends in it. Eventually, by a combination of both methods, I got the door to work again.:crazy:

I know this sounds confusing, put if you take off door panel, you should see what I mean.
 
Whew! Looks like I'm not gonna have to take the panel off just yet. Out of habit I used the handle and the door opened before I realized what I had done. So I cleaned the latch up again and worked it back and forth a few times (and scared myself when it locked so the door wouldnt latch until I found the release) so now it opens every time again. I'll keep spraying it when I think about it just to make sure it stays happy.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top