Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Door won't open

Suddenly neither the power lock nor the manual mechanism will unlock the driver's door of my 1996 Contour. Looks like I'm going to need to remove inner door panel while the door is shut. Has anyone else had this experience?
Thanks.

I had my inside go out on me. Had to take the panel off too. But since your door won't open at all, I don't know how to help you get the panel off.

IF you can get it open, take the panel off, and use a razor blade on the plastic inner liner, around the gooey stuff they use to glue it on. Save the liner flat on the ground, you'll use it again to seal the door back up. The gooey stuff just goes back together again.

Now, going from memory, I had to replace a small section of wire cable. Seems our Tours have a unique locking mechanism whereby steel cables are used. That's why there's that funky noise when we press the locks.. Why, I'll never know.

Anyway, once you get the door open you'll have to squat down and with a flashlight look at the inners of the door. Pull the inside handle and see if it's cable is pulling. Pull the outside handle, same? There should be a white piece of plastic covering a portion of the whole mechanism that you'll probably need to pull of, it sort of yanks off and can be put back on later.

The sucky part is getting a new cable in, but it can be done. Probably in there somewhere is a broken cable or piece that's screwing the whole works up.

I'm sorry I'm being vague, but if you can get the door open, and look in there, study it for a bit and you'll see the "magic" of how it works. It is a very complex little bit of engineering to say the least.

I got my replacement cable from the salvage yard. If you can find a Tour with a banged up door you may be in luck for the part. The part was held on both ends. It was really just a section of steel wire, with a round piece pinched on both ends, the round pieces fit in a slot so when it turned, the wire pulled and the door opens..


GOOD LUCK!!! Hope I helped some...

Thank's Nate!
I'm going to print your directions. Hopefully, I'll get the door open, as a starting point.

I just hope it helps.
Don't take it as gospel, since it's been awhile since I fixed it. But if you get the panel off you'll be in a much better position to find out what's wrong!

Good luck.

Probably a dumb question, but did you try the key lock?

Door Problem Fixed.
After removing small shroud around inside door handle and probing with a jewelers screw driver, the lock released long enough to get the door open. After removing inner door panel and part of the sound insulation, I checked for every moving part, spraying as I went with white synthetic grease through the straw. Eventually, it would release manually using a lot of pressure and pop back again after a few seconds (like the cable was binding). Spent about 90 minutes, loosening, removing, re-attaching everything. Finally, the lock and door closure mechanism started acting normally. Leaving inner door panel off, I drove into town looking for a valve cover gasket, which I found at O'Reilly, not a Pep, not a Autozone, not at NAPA.
In conclusion, thanks for all your help. I can only guess that the lube needed to work its way into the cable, which is mostly enclosed.. .and I now have a well-lubricated door.
Dean

Cool, it wasn't a broken cable. Bet the lube loosened it up for a good long time. You should be problem free, but if not, you now have the know-how to DIY.

Good job!