Re: [DML] Passenger Door

["Walter Coe" <Whalt@xxxx>]

> Walt, apparently the early cars have a shorter cable for the exterior
release handle
> preventing the spring on the latch release from pulling back far enough
and allowing the
> locks to function correctly.

Martin,

I never heard of the early cars having a different length cable. I compared
between the OEM handle, the cast aluminum retrofit and the new DMC/Texas
reproduction handle, and dimensionally they all are the same. Of course the
cable is a separate piece. Are you sure the early cables are shorter? If
the cable didn't translate all the movement from the handle to the bell
crank, then you really have a problem.

I theorized before that much of our problems could be resolved if the
exterior handle could be made to retract more cable. Without modifying the
existing hardware, I made a bell crank thingy that allowed the cable to
attach closer to the bell crank's pivot. The idea behind this is that the
short movement of the cable would translate into a bigger movement of the
bell crank at the expense of making the handle stiffer. This worked per se
but made it too stiff.

My next step was to loosen all the springs involved. The engineers wanted
to make very sure that the handle didn't rattle, so they have a spring in
each latch and two in the handle itself. Put this all together and you have
one very stiff door handle. Add to it the cable adjustment problem and it's
no wonder why so many people have handles break. I already converted to
DMC/Texas reproduction handles and didn't want to modify them. But it
looked like a good thing to try would be to drill a new set of holes for the
ends of the springs to hold into. This would relax the tension a bit. Even
completely removing a spring from one side might help. This would make the
handle easier to move, but the thin lever arm would still be strained just
as much (or more with my bell crank thingy). Someday I'll get an extra set
of latches to tinker with. If they could be made to work reliably with a
softer spring inside then this with my bell crank thingy would be a perfect
fix.

Walt