My drivers side door isnt opening, from the inside or the the outside.
You see, its been kinda loose, the door that is. It was drooping alittle bit, and I had to lift the door up to shut it. Well, about two days of this, and BAM the door doesnt open back up.

My question is...
Is it possible to take the door apart WHILE its shut? C3's are so tight as it is, man, this is going to be tough.

 

Yes, I had to do it to both doors. When I got mine, both locking mechanisms were frozen, and the previous owner crawled in and out through the window. I unscrewed and took off the trim pieces right behind the seat that goes over the seatbelt. That gave me access to a hard-to-get-to door panel screw, and gave me extra room to shimmy the door panel off (carefully). Took some effort, though. Then I had access to the lock mechanism through the access hole. I got a screwdriver in there and was able to open it manually (after some probing around to figure out what all the levers did). That's as far as I went. In your case, I don't know if you need to take the metal cage off of the door, though.

 

Must have been a DUKE...was it Bo or Luke ??:lol:

His info sounds very good...there isn't that many screw holding that interior panel on...I removed mine plenty when I was fixing my exterior door handles and adjusting them.... :yesnod:

 

Must have been a DUKE...was it Bo or Luke ??:lol:


Ylose seek help immediately

:lol: :lol: :lol:


[Modified by Alwyn678, 2:38 PM 5/1/2002]

 

Taking that panel off with the door closed will be very hard.You'll need a lot of luck to complete that task. The problem is probally in the connecting rod from the handle to the opening mechamize.

 

Pull on the inside door handle real hard and give the door a stiff kick back at the latch and it may well pop open.

 

There is one other option to getting the door open. I had my driver's side door jam and I used a strong piece of wire (coat hanger should work) and hooked a lever on the internal mechanism. It's hard to explain how to locate the right one but if you look down inside the door towards the right (by the window, may want to roll it down) and work the handle you should be able to see a lever being pushed up slightly. If you hook this lever and yank the door should pop open even if the door is misaligned and causing the latch to jam. The door handles on these cars don't allow a whole lot of force to be transmitted to the catch, this method jumps straight to the catch. Hope this helps.

-Matt

 

i hope you don't have the same problem i did. about six months ago the same thing happened to me. of course, i found this out 30 miles from home when it was raining. had to crawl through...that sux.
i tried everything too, squirting all kinds of lubricants down the inside of the window track, unlocking-then relocking-and unlocking again, pulling the inside door pull while kicking the door but nothing worked. so i ended up ripping off the door panel and i do mean ripping. i didn't destroy it too badly but with it firmly in place, it is not meant to come out of that location. even after that, no luck :confused: even then i had access to alot more of the door guts than before and still could not figure out what was causing the problem. finally out of overwhelming frustration, i grabbed my little mini-hack (short handle that holds a hacksaw blade and managed to cut through the striker bolt. it took a while but as soon as i got through it the door immediately came open (geez, i wonder why :rolleyes: )
funny thing is, once the door was free, i hit the door handle and it popped the latch and the rest of the striker bolt came flying out. the only thing that i can figure is that the factory striker bolts have a rubber isolator under a sleeve which i assume is to cut down on rattling or something. well, when the rubber is all rotted out, the sleeve just spins or, according to my theory, gets wedged in the latch mechanism.
i replaced the striker bolt with a generic one from autozone for about $5 and haven't had any more problems. :smash:


[Modified by clutchdust, 9:56 PM 5/1/2002]

 

There are two screws that help hold on the panel and can only be removed with the door open. You will have to RIP of the panel where these clips insert into the panel to remove it with the door shut. Find a 16 year old kid and give him a 6 pack and 5 mins and your problem will be solved.

 

I dont want to rip anything...! :sad: :cry

 

What year is your car? If its like my '78, the only screw you 'can't get to' is on top of the door panel all the way on the end - right over the door striker. Its hidden under the trim behind the seat, like I mentioned in my above post.
Removing the trim allows you to get to the screw.
The panel is squished pretty tight between the door and the dash. Although I had to do some heavy pulling / wiggling, it didn't crease or break. Once you get it off the retainer clips on the top of the door, just carefully shimmy it back and forth. Try different angles, and finally you will be able to pull up the side closest to the back of the car and pull it out of there with no damage.
Again, this was on my '78, so earlier cars may be different.

 

I was looking today, and that trim behind the seat has screws that are between the trim and the door that I cant get to.

 

vash, see my earlier post. seriously, $5 for a new striker bolt, $5 for the minihack and five minutes (maybe more like 10) and no ripping involved. i'm pretty sure that door panels cost a bit more that $10. if you do, just remember to cut the bolt as close to the latch as possible so you can turn it out with vise grips once you get the door open. hope it helps. :cheers: