MacT13

Hello CF, the door handles on my c6 (2006) were becoming unresponsive to the touch. I finally decided I couldn't live with it, so I fixed it and decided to make a tutorial in case others are having this problem (I tried to be as thorough as possible). So, let's begin!

[U The supplies you will need are:[/U]
-Contact cleaner (I used brake cleaner, does the trick)
-Fine sand paper
-Scotch Brite pad
-Rag
-2 Phillips screwdrivers (one small and one large)


First, you will remove the 2 screws that attach the door handle to the door.


Once the screws are removed, simply pull the door handle away from the door.


Once the handle is pulled away, a clip and harness will be revealed on the wiring, unclip the harness and remove the handle completely.


Now the handle and pad will be off the vehicle.


The touch pad assembly will now separate from the door handle housing.


Once separated, we will be concerned with the touch pad assembly, on the side opposite of the rubber pad, there will be 6 small screws, remove these.


With the screws removed, the assembly will split in half and you will see a copper side and an aluminum side which if your handle is being unresponsive to the touch, is most likely corroded, like mine was.


Now, we start to remove the corrosion. Spray some contact cleaner on the copper side and rough up the corrosion with the fine sand paper, this will remove most of the corrosion from the plate. Don't be afraid to spray more contact cleaner as you sand, it makes life easier.


After sanding for a little while to loosen the corrosion, I went over the plate with my Scotch Brite pad to help clean it up a little bit.


Next after removing the corrosion I wiped away the left over contact cleaner and goo that remained on the plate with my rag.This was the final product after removing the corrosion versus the other side door handle that I had yet to do.

It may take a few repeats of the previous 3 steps in order to get the plate this clean, just keep sanding, until the corrosive material is removed.

Now that you have finished the copper side, move to the aluminum side and repeat the steps, this won't take nearly as much work as the copper side since there will be far less corrosion.
This is my final product after cleaning both sides.


To prevent future corrosion issues, add dielectric grease to the contacts! (Thanks Zarnperformance)

Now, reassemble the pieces to the touch pad by fastening the 6 small screws, seat the touch pad assembly back into the door handle housing, reattach the harness to the pad assembly, slide the handle back onto the door, and put the 2 large screws back into place and your touch pad should work like new! Work backwards through the pictures if you need help to see how to reassemble the housing and handle.

Hope this tutorial helps you!
Feel free to ask questions, I will respond as soon as possible!

-Mac

Rich Mickol

Well done Mac.

Kvothe

Did mine a couple weeks ago.

Maybe the mods can replace the old sticky with this one. I believe the one on there now has the pics missing.

Zarnperformance

To add to a already great thread, I add dielectric grease to the contacts to prevent future issues.

Cycleman6

Nice helpful write up. I as well have had to complete this task. I used MAF cleaner to clean.

Mad*Max

thanks for posting, it is just a matter of time when I will have to do this

chevyc6z51

Thanks

MacT13

Yes! I did not think about this until after I had finished the task and made the thread, I will add that onto the post, Thanks!

Slare

I did this last season but at some point the copper wears down too much and while this helps, in my case it wasn't a 100% fix. If you get in there and yours are boogered up to the point of the contacts looking thin, just go ahead and buy replacements. Fortunately they are not expensive. When they are new/100% it should take just a tiny little force anywhere on the rubber area to work them.

I did put some de grease on the new ones in hopes that it will help them live longer.

EZ^RT

Great post < was having troubles with the driver side,felt like an idiot yesterday leaving the gas pump <,looking like i did not know what i was doing pushing,pulling tugging trying to get in < so i did them both today < like butter , thanks
......****also those with older batteries you may want to disconnect , doing both doors I killed the battery .......................

olefam

Although my GS is a bit newer, this is a very good post to keep for future reference. Thank you.
Glen

Brian E

Great post!
Love this forum.

4SUMERZ

You may want to change your battery if cleaning the door pads killed your battery.
I did mine, took my time, and had no issues on my new battery.

MikeERWNC

I just did this to my car on Sunday. It made my door handles work great for about ten pulls.
Then everything went wrong. Windows won't index can't get out using the button...

Did some research and found I am not the only one with this issue, so this is what I came up with:

You bought a Corvette and you are trying to save a few cents? Yep. Sometimes I am a cheap bastard.
You are contemplating taking the door handle off and cleaning it? I read on the internet that this will fix my problems.
What is you time worth? I am pretty busy.
A new door handle is under 15.00 from your GM dealer.
In the time it takes you to pull the handle and clean it, you could have driven to the dealer gotten a new one and installed it and had a perfectly working door.

I will post my video on the Youtubes soon.

I spent about an hour trying to troubleshoot my intermittent door problems before hitting the internet after cleaning the pads.
Do yourself a favor, replace the pads instead of cleaning them.
Cleaning them is not worth the headache.
15.00 per side... That is cheap for a simple easy to swap out Corvette part.
And your good as new in under ten minutes!

JKbride

When I was in the Army, we would clean contacts with a pencil eraser.....it works great!

Thanks for the DIY thread, it will be appreciated by many for a long time

AZ_DSOM

Anyone have the part number for the touch pads handy? Thanx

Rebel 1

Thanks for the DIY.
Well done.

Gman in NC

Thanks for the write-ups Mac. Just thinking of doing mine. I think the key here is using dielectric grease during reassembly. This will make this part better than new. I use that stuff on anything electricaL, and my weatherstripping.

Roddy1

GM OEM 22751230 Door-Handle Switch. I gave $11.20 shipped for mine.

MacT13

To all that have thanked me, it is my pleasure! I've used this forum a lot to help myself so I'm more than happy to contribute a little bit to help others.