Door Handle Repair Options

[rick 918-S]

I had two right side door handles that were both broken. One had the arms that work the plastic slide broken off and the other had the mounting tab broken off. Here's what I did to make one handle out of two.

First I drilled out the stamped pin from both handles.





Here's what I had.




By the way. The lock will slide in and out of the handle body nicely if you have the key in the cylinder. Notice the lock cylinder looks like a porcupine without the key.




One of the hardest part of reassembly is getting the handle back on the body. The spring under the handle is a tricky little bugger. I used a little smaller diameter torks driver so the handle was a sloppy fit. Then I had enough slop to get the plastic slide on without having to fight the slide, the handle and the spring all at the same time.

Then I slid the torks driver out with a 6 mm bolt I had in a pan of used hardware. A 1/4" bolt os too big for the hole. A 6 mm is the same size as the stamped pin I drilled out.





After I installed the bolt I used a cut off tool and trimmed off the extra threads. After I finished the trimming I used a center punch and swedged the threads to lock it.



Here's the end result. Thiis is great for a spare handle when you break one just before a weekend trip or a planned outing.

[geniusanthony]

If they were sand cast from a better/stronger material like say alluminum, could we deal with the 3% shrinkage> I have been thinking of trying to do this for some time.