Getting a Handle on Things

      The passenger door on my old Ford was sans one handle. This made it difficult for passengers to get in.

     To enter the car a passenger would have to risk contracting tentanous  by sticking their index finger into a dark and mysterious hole with sharp edges to push against a tiny panel that was difficult to find and even harder to push. 

     This was a skill that had to be learned by each new passenger. Needless to say it was irritating to try and explain and hard for folks understand.

Note the dark and mysterious hole

Note the paint leftover from a terrible masking job by a previous owner.

     So I started looking through my boxes of junk that came with the car. Lo and behold I found a passenger handle. But it was incomplete, which is probably the reason it was removed in the first place. 

     I'm not sure what the part that was missing was called, but we'll call it a plunger. It is what makes contact with the plate that actually unlatches the door so it can be opened. 

     I thought a machine screw with a nice rounded head would work well as a new plunger. So I drilled out the existing hole in the handle and cut threads cut some threads for the screw. 

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     After the threads were cut I ran a machine screw into them and made sure it was the right lenght by measuring the depth from the unlatching plate to the door skin and from the door skin to where my threads were cut into the handle. It came out to about 1 3/4". To this measurement I added how far the screw went into the handle.
     

     I smoothed the head of the screw the bench grinder some sandpaper to help reduce friction. I re-fit the handle and tested it for clearance. After I saw that it worked I pulled everything back apart and cleaned what I could with a wire brush and cleaner. I lubed both the handle and the latch mechanism and reassembled it all nice and tightly

     

     Below are some pics taken from the window channel looking down into the door. You can see the screw head against the unlatching plate. Closed position on the left and Open on the right.


 

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Closed

Open

+ one handle

     This job wasn't too difficult it just required a little consideration. But the results are that I have passenger handle and latch that works better than the driver's side. You're welcom everyone on the other side of my car. 

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