Uber-Sticky Door Handles `84 240 DL

The outside door handles are getting worse and worse. They're old, and
getting crankier. More and more, you have to pull up rather than out,
to the point where I have to help some of my friends get in. Is there
anything I can do about this?

sorry for the rapid fire posting. i've been meaning to ask these q's
for a month now and kept forgetting.

-Myren

 

Have you tried taking off the interior door panel to oil the door
handles and their linkages?

 

Open up everything in the door and re-assemble the mechanism (only if you
are mechanically inclined though) and use a heavy white grease for all the
joints... My friend did this to his old Jetta with handles that wouldn't
open, or that were about to fall off, and now his doors open almost like a
new car! (Still has some hinge sag...)

 

You can buy new hinges from VW, mine came unpainted so I just threw rust
primer on them. Drive out the old pins, bolt on the new ones and drive the
pins back in. Fixed my sagging 86 Jetta. Pneumatic tools help. I also did
the dissasemble and lithium grease all the parts, it helps a lot.

 

A common failure of the door handle mechanism is that the two rivets
that allow the lift bar to actuate the latch rust away. Typically the
rivet closest to the rear edge of the door breaks or falls out. If you
remove the door panel you can easily see and understand the way the
latch operates. Although lubricating everything is a good idea, no
mechanical part ever died from overlubrucation, if the rivet is failing
you may replace it either with a new rivet, a new handle, or tap it 5mm
and install a screw and washers using locktite on the tapped portion to
keep the crew from turning.

Tighten all the stuff that has worked loose over the years, window
regulator, for example.

Bob

 

Yah, you can buy new hinges for just about any car... They're not free tho
and the door still closes... So he never changed them.