[DML] Re: DML: Door Won't Open

[Mike Substelny <msubstel@xxxx>]

Brian said:

> my passenger side door no longer opens.......does anyone know a
> procedure for opening it?

You have my sympathy. This can be a very difficult situation,
especially if a passenger of the fairer sex is trapped in your
DeLorean! You probably need to get inside the door and adjust the
linkages.

With luck, your problem might be that either the lock linkage or the
latch linkage has worked its way to a marginal area where they no longer
reach far enough to do their job reliably. You might be able to coax
them by pushing the inside lock rocker hard, pulling up on the door
handle, and rapping the lower part of the door with your fist. It might
also help to have someone outside pulling up on the bottom of the door
(not the handle).

If this does not work, then you need to get at the door's inner
mechanism with the door closed. It is not easy to remove those panels
while the door is closed! The previous owner of my car did it, and
damaged soft foam material around both inner door handles in the
process. The upside of this unfortunate event is that on my car it is
fairly easy to get inside my doors when I need to.

Unfortunately, to get at the mechanism in question you must remove the
BOTTOM inner door panel, which is the trickier of the two. Both panels
are held in place by rivets and nylon christmas tree clips, but the
bottom panel is also held in by that foam around the pull handle.

A few questions:

Does your car have door guides? Some early DeLoreans, like mine, did
not. If you don't have door guides you might have a damaged latch
mechanism, which could make opening that door difficult even if you
access the inner mechanism. Can you tell if the door is held closed by
just one latch or both? This will tell you which linkage(s) need to be
adjusted.

I just replaced a latch yesterday (damaged by 18 years without guides),
and now both of my doors are fully functional. But tonight I will be
getting inside and fine tuning the linkages, which have slipped a little
bit over the years.

- Mike Substelny


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