Another Door Thread

[gringo]

Hi all,

I did a search for this but couldn't find specific info so hopefully I am not going over the same ground again...

I have a 97 Disco 300TDI. The front passenger door will not open sometimes via both internal and external latch. When this happens my wife just keeps operating the latch until eventually it works. Seems to be getting worse though so I thought I would have a look for anything obvious.

Now I am a bit of a gumby with all things mechanical so I just wanted to have a look - I have read about the spring being a cause of most evil so was trying to see it etc.

What I noticed was that I could run a screw driver through the latching mechanism on the edge of the door to simiulate the bar attached to the door frame. When I did this there appeared to be two stages or two points at which the latch clicks. I have no idea why but was the same on the drivers door. For trivia's sake would love to know why...?

Anyway what I found was that the whole thing would work perfectly if the second stage of the latch was engaged but would fail if only the first stage. All that appeared to be required to move from one stage to the other was greater pressure on the screwdriver. The drivers side door, that works fine, opened on both stages of the latch mechanism so I am assuming that the problem with the passeneger door has something to do with this.

Is this where the dreaded spring is located?? Is this symptomatic of the issue?

Finally my mechanice suggested you have to take the glass and the whole mechanism out in order to fix the spring. Is this correct? Is there step by step instructions somewhere that will get a gumby like me through??

Thanks in advance!

Gringo

[German Grüner]

There is a easy way in order to diagnose the broken spring issue.
When the door opening is failing, you only need to pull the lock button to its higher position. If then door opens, then the problem is this spring.
The reason is that the spring works to force the lock/unlock mechanism to the extreme positions. If it's broken the door levers move the lock/unlock mechanism in the correct way, but not to this extreme position.
So, pulling the lock button to the upper position helps the mechanism to find the correct unlock position.
The correct way to get the mechanism out is taking apart partially the glass, and you need disconnect the door mirror in order to do this.
Good luck

Regards

[gringo]

Thank you sir...your method of diagnosis was extremely helpful - the spring it is.

Gringo