Fixing the Outside Handle on your Car Door

 We bought Princess One's car back that I bought her the week of her wedding three years ago this month.


Her husband was trying to open the back door and thought it was frozen shut so he yanked on the handle only to find out that it was actually just locked. :-0 

I called the junk yard to find a back cover over her hatch in her new Subaru and they had one so I asked about the handle at the same time and they told me that they had one. Yahoo for that!


I asked the guy that pulled it off the other car, if it was hard to put on. He said, "No, there are two screws around the handle on inside and one in the opener. Take those out and pop off the inside liner and you will be good to go!" 

With that grand encouragement, when I got home after our little trip, I took it on.

I unscrewed the screws in the handle and opener area as you can see, I popped it off the door as best I could until the window handle got in my way. 


I looked and looked for a way to get that off and unscrewed, pulled etc. I didn't want to break it was that happened on Princess Three's car. So, what to do.... 

My brother-in-law used to have an autobody shop. I thought he would know for sure. I called him and told him what I was doing and he laughed telling me that you have to have a special tool to pull those off. 

Sooooo, I wasn't really happy with the parts place as it took me forever to figure that out.

I asked if I could borrow the tool and he said he was out and about and could run it over. I had all the tools out and the door opened and half apart and he pulled up and started working on it before I even knew he was there. 

It wasn't hard but it wasn't as easy as the parts guy made it sound. 

Once the handle and door liner are off, you need a socket set that can get into small spaces. We ended up using a screw driver with my socket set in order to get the socket into the place needed. You can see it in the picture ass we had to take off the three screws on the side of the door to move the latch piece enough to get to the screw pin holding the handle on. 


Once the handle is clear, a little metal piece just slides into a hole. Just pay attention when you are taking off the handle and you will see where to slide the little metal pin into the hole. 

Once you have done that, it fits back into the opening in the door and you screw it all back together. The whole thing took about ten minutes or so. 

I laughed when he found the little lock top that was missing from the car when I purchased it and I just bought a pack of old one's or got them from the junk yard to replace the missing one's in the back seat. 

Once the hard part was done, my brother in law left and I finished screwing in the three side bolts holding the lock latch in. You can see how we needed the long handle to get to the screws in the pictures above.

Once everything is screwed back in, just pop the door liner back in. Oh, on the hinge side of the door, there are a few clips that hold the liner on, I broke one not knowing that you need to push the center on the clips to release them before you take off the liner. 


I popped it back on and screwed the liner back on in the handle and opener area and the window roll down handle was easy to "pop" back on with the pin in it.

I'll share my return visit to the car parts place tomorrow.