I started a thread about 3 days ago about my '75's driver side door not opening. I was able to open the door but the door still does not open using the outside or inside handle. Comparing the working passenger side locking/door mechanism with the driver side, I noticed that there is a lever that should push up that is missing a plate or the plate it misplaced on the driver's door. Has anyone seen this happen or know what could be causing the plate to not be there? Please see the picture below for guidance.

 

Do you mean the tab on the lever is gone or the entire lever is gone?

 

Neither. The small tab on the lever should drive up a plate (inside the small recessed rectangle that the arrows point to) that operates the latch and opens the door.

Sorry for the confusion. I really wish I could get a better picture. I borrowed the great picture from someone's older thread and modified it for my problem.

 

Anyone?

 

Do you have an assembly manual or shop manual to identify this part? If you are close to a vendor, I would bet they could help with this too. Brian and Adam at Volunteer Vette are good at these types of problems. I have just had mine out but I can't remember doing anything special in that area.
Bernie

 

Yes, I own a A.I.M., Haynes and Chilton's manual and none identified the part. Next I'll try my Corvette Parts Manual. Each of the other manuals and catalogs only sells or identifies the whole locking mechanism and not the smaller parts.

Has anyone else seen this problem before?

 

I would guess the cause of the missing plate/lever is it broke

Have you looked inside the bottom of the door? Maybe its still there.
I don't think anyplace sells componants of the latch, just the latch itself

 

that drivers side latch looks pretty gunked up. are you sure that the plate you are looking for is not stuck up there somewhere?

maybe try soaking it in WD-40.

 

I have probably the exact problem with my 1968 driver's side latch. I have the latch available to look at and it looks like the one in your photos. The problem with my latch is that the built in lever arm that opens the door, will not. It acts jammed. I can "open" the door latch by triggering off the mechanishm with a screw driver. Of course this is holding the thing in my hand. I suspect that one of the stamped arms in the mechanism is bent. I've started to drill out the rivets that hold the mechanism together. I want to dissimble the entire mechanism. As of now, I haven't got it dissembled. The "rivets" do not appear to be cylindrical. They appear to be rectangular, so it's going to be a little extra difficulty getting them apart. (They look cylindrical when you first start to drill them out.)

I've already contacted some used parts vendors for a "new" used mechanism. I'be been quoted $225.00 for a "new" used door latch mechanism. Very pricey.

The door mechanism is a little bit sophisticated. Mechanically if the door is locked, the door handles will not open the door. You can lock the door outside with a key, or inside with the door lock ****. All of this mechanical "logic" is done with steel stamped levers with very simple pivots. When the door ages, with a big pile up of grease and dirt (sand), the tolerances on all the door mechanisms deteriorate and jamb conditions become possible. I think my door jamb problem started when my 10 year old grandson locked himself in the car to tease me (he knows I don't want him to play in the car). Trying to recreate the jamb, it seems he might have tried to open the door at the same time as locking the door. Recreating these motions, I can see that both opening and locking at the same time put the mechanics into a possible jamb conditiion.

Anyhow...the plan ahead. I hope I can get a good used mechanism and just install it and have the problem go away. I plan to dissimble the 1968 mechanism just to understand how it works. Interesting. I have had a lock out condition on my 1970 Coupe. Fortunately it went away. I'd really like to know how to prevent this since there's a possibility that to open the door you have to destroy the interior door panel, which is a great expense.

 

First off, Your welcome for the pic
Modify it all you need to, this is why I posted it.

So are you saying that the lever and it's tab are still there, but the plate inside the mechanism is not there??

If this is the case I would suspect 3 possible reasons;
1) The inside of the latch mechanism is so gummed up with old grease that the return spring for that plate is not pulling it back down into place. It is just stuck up inside where you can't see it.

2) The return spring is broken or missing therefore the plate is not returning for the lever to be able to operate it.

3) The rivet(s) that holds that plate in place have broken (or the plate it'self has broken).

It's been quite a while since I worked on my latches and took that pic, so I can't really remember where the return spring is for the plate in question, but I seem to remember that that particular part of the mechanism was pretty beefy. I would be surprised if the rivet or the plate were broken. If they are broken your only choice will be to trash the entire latch mechansm and get a replacement.

My money would be on the dammed thing being so gummed up that it is not working properly.
I soaked mine in kerosene overnight then used a selection of different brushes (toothbrushes, round brushes, stainless stell brushes, etc..), screwdrivers, pieces of music wire, and whatever else I had handy to clean all of the old grease out of them. It probably took an hour or two per latch to get them clean inside and out.
I used kerosene because it was handy, but I would bet that any kind of mild solvent that eats through old grease would work fine.

Pull it back out of there, clean it up, and I bet you will find that you can get it to start working again. Then just make sure you grease it up really well before you put it back and I bet it will work for another 30 years or so

 

No need to destroy anything. I actually managed to lock my keys in my vette not long after I had done the work on my latches (those are my latches in the pic). Luckily while I was fumbling around trying to figure out how to get into my car without cutting the convertible top a guy from the office next door offered to let me use his slim jim. I was able to put a slight bend in the slim jim, slide it down and immediately contact the outer door lock lever. Slight pull up and it was no longer locked. The whole thing took about a quarter of the time to do as it just did for you to read about it.

 

For degreasing try using crystal simple green. I suppose the easier to find simple green would work as well.
If you soak it about full strength is will totally dissolve stuff like grease and carbon. You don't have to do any cleaning other than rinsing and spraying it with some oil, its water based.

I've also sprayed stuff like this with dry lubricants first. Dry molydiumdisulphide - moly or graphite.

 

How do you make room to reach all the parts in the door? Remove the window? Remove...? It's not like you have tons of space in there to clean it all.

 

You have to take the latches out of the door in order to clean them.

Once the inside door panel is off you will see an access panel at the bottom. It is held on with 5 or 6 screws, remove these and the access panel. This is where you will pull the latch mechanism out (once it is unbolted) since it will not fit through any of the other holes.

At the top rear of the door look closely and you will see 3 small phillips head screws (if my memory serves me correctly there are two on the end of the door and one on the inside steel panel) that hold the plastic water diverter in place. Remove these and then carefully maneuver the diverter out of the way. You might have to experiment with the window in different stages of up and down to have access.

Once the diverter is out of the way you can disconnect the three pushrods from the latch (one from the outside door handle, one from the inside door handle, and the other from the inside lock ****).
They all have keeper clips that hold them in place, the one from the outside door handle should slide back toward the latch to release the pushrod. The other two clip onto the rod and will unclip and swing out of the way. Mine were caked with dried grease and I needed a screwdriver to free them up.

Once those three rods are disconnected the latch is ready to come out. Just remove the three large phillips head screws that hold the latch to the end panel of the door. Support the latch inside while loosening the last screw so it doesn't fall. It will take a little maneuvering to get the latch past the window guides but it will make it, then just lower it to the bottom access panel and pull it out.

As you can see in the pics mine were really nasty (they both looked like the one on the right when I started). That grease was so dried out and hard that Simple Green had absolutely no affect on it. Varsol would probably be the best thing to use, but I'm not really sure where that stuff can be purchased.

 

BINGO! Exact same problem.

I have read the other posts and believe that it's possible the connection is gummed up with dirt or paint particles from sanding my Vette. However, it appears more to me that the lever or plate is really just bent from use. I really cannot tell but have not given up. I'll keep everyone posted on what I learn.

 

Thanks Kevin! I never knew that plate could be removed. Now I'll be cleaning up in there a lot easier, which is indeed very neccessary: opening the door needs quite a lot of force on the key and I was allready thinking of where I left my spare keys again in case it broke.