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Door Handle Fix, 1hr and $6.67

55K views 53 replies 29 participants last post by  rblapham 
#1 · (Edited)
My interior door handle has been broken for sometime. I decided to tear things apart and see what could be done to fix the problem, rather than replace the entire panel, or get parts from a liberty and try to make them work. This should work for any of the doors (mine was drivers front)

Materials:
Plastic epoxy from Loctite
Nylon spacer 3.8" x .171" x 1"



Once you have materials, time to take off the door panel. There are three screws to remove


Next remove the window switch pack. Gently pry it upwards, then disconnect the three pack wire connections

Then the rest of the panel comes off with standard push clips. You can pry them out with trim tool or pull with your fingers. Clip locations below in black arrows. You will also need to remove 3 more wired connections (red), and the door handle release (green) in order to get the panel off the car.



From there, you can see where the handle is broken off at the pivot pin. You want to take a large drill bit or dremel and grind out a nice little pocket for the nylor spacer to sit in.



Next take the nylon spacer, and drill out the center slightly larger so the pivot pin can slide in and out easily. I used a 13/64" drill bit. Then cut the spacer in half. Time for a trial fit. You may need to do some additional trimming of the spacer and the door panel to get a nice level fit, and one that will not impede with the door handle itself.



Once things line up well, go ahead and mix a little of the epoxy. Leave the handle and spring out, just use the pin and the spacers. Take care not to glue the pin to the spacers, or get any glue on the inside pin area where the handle rides.


Let this dry for 20-30 minutes, then remove the pin. Grind off any epoxy that is in the way of the handle, and the reassemble the pin, spring, and handle. Glob some more epoxy over everything to make sure you have a good bond Once again, make sure you dont glue the handle in place. (SEE EDIT ON BELOW POSTS, DONT ASSEMBLE SPRING LIKE THIS)




Let dry. Epoxy will turn dark yellow, and get very hard.



Handle from other side, before reinstalling



Put the door panel back on just the way you took it off. Dont forget the wire connections or hooking up the door release wire. Sucks to take everything back apart again when you forget.

Enjoy the cheap fix! This looks like it is going to work and hold for a long while!
 
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#2 ·
I had the same thing happen to my back passenger door handle. I used plastic epoxy like yours but i also imbedded some of that nylon mesh drywall tape to try and strengthen it up. Thanks for the great write up.
 
#4 ·
Hmm, on a side note. Dont install the spring like in the pictures above. It needs to be tensioned so that it is pulling the handle shut. I was able to fix it but it took some time.
 
#7 · (Edited)
UPDATE: Finally got her in. You have to line up the spring as shown in the picture, except that the exposed end of the spring should be on the other side of the pin. When you have the spring positioned correctly, you have to push straight down (which is really an SOB since you are putting the spring under tension) and insert the pin at the same time. Good luck!

Hi guys, I am new to this forum as I just bought a Commander over the weekend. Anyhow...

One of the things that needed to be fixed was that the door handle was broken, just as this thread describes. (Gosh I love the internet!!!) Well, I have glued everything back together but I can not get the damn spring to go back in. Any suggestions? I know that the spring is not tense in the picture, the open end needs to be tucked under to put tension on the spring, if that makes any sense. Thanks!!!
 

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#6 ·
"Put the door panel back on just the way you took it off. Dont forget the wire connections or hooking up the door release wire. Sucks to take everything back apart again when you forget."
That green plastic part was making a vibrating sound and I took the panel off. When I put it back on the door window didn't work.
 
#9 ·
I am not mechanically incline whatsover. So, I am putting it out there. The circular plastic part on my doors is broken in so many pieces. Are there anyone in Orange County, CA that will and can fix these doors for me. I will pay. Thanks in advance.
 
#12 ·
If the round plastic piece is broken then you are in trouble. I have seen a post on here where someone used a jeep liberty door part. Hopefully your search button works better than mine. If you find it please link. I got mine workable but it is broken into too many pieces to fix correctly. Whoever made these parts should be shot!!!! The first time I superglued all the round parts together it shattered in another spot the first time I touched it(very light pressure just to see if the glue held)
 
#13 ·
I just had to do this as well...

My wife was riding in the passenger side, and the opened the door and heard a pop. I knew what happened so I stopped at Lowes on the way home and got some Epoxy.

It was broke around the edge of the cicular 'cup' part of the door handle assembly and in a few other places. I was able to remove the pin and spring from the actual handle and take off the handle, which made lining everything up a lot easier. When it all dried, it was a real PITA to get the spring back in the right way. But it is back together and holding.

I pulled off the driver door panel to check it, and there were cracks forming on it as well. I put some epoxy over the cracks, and in the other areas I thought would be 'stress' areas to hopefully save that door.

I took pics and will try and post them up tomorrow to show what mine looked like before and after.
 
#17 ·
OK folks, I took the door apart and while pulling everthing out to get to the actuator rod the whole curved part broke out. That's the Bad news, the good news is that I was able to super glue everything in place and then follow Atljar's directions. I have everything epoxied and will wait until morning to reinstall the handle. I have a question concerning the picture jeepnvinney posted. If I push the right end over to the otherside, what holds it there? I don't want to put too much tension on things and break something else. Your thoughts please.
 
#18 · (Edited)
Update, with the help of a friend, I got the spring reinserted. For those that may need to do this in the future, remove the switches in the door and disconnect the the actuator arm from the handle first, at least unhook the yellow connector. Then remove the entire pannel. When reinstalling the spring( after the above instructions) put a small pin throught the pin hole ( I used a short allen wrench) on the side with the hook to hold the hook side of the spring. Use points(long nose pliers) to turn the spring and position it in the grove. Then push the pin through, might take a bit of prying and pushing, but it will go( 4hands are better than 2 for the whole reassembly). Put everything back together and all should be well. Thanks to all who have contributed to this thread.


I have been looking at this , do I place the flat end of the spring (the right end) under the pin as I install the pin and then push the spring towards the right and then hook the end in the notch in the handle?
 
#19 ·
Here are my pics I took while fixing it. You can see the area where the pieces broke and other cracks that had started to form. I forgot to take pics before reinstalling, but I put epoxy over the cracks that were starting to form, and I took off the driver's panel and it had cracks forming as well, so I put epoxy on that side to hopefully stop it from happening.











The area that is broken is the area that is under a lot of stress from the spring. If you look at the 3rd pic, the part of the spring that is sticking out and pointing to the left needs to be pushed down and point to the right. That is what puts tension on the handle and pulls it back into the door cavity. I did it by myself, but it was a PITA. I used a small pair of needle nose pliers with a curved tip, and a regular pair of needle nose to do it. I was worried that it would break the panel again since it was pretty tough to do, but it made it through fine.
 
#23 ·
#33 ·
Has anyone done this yet? I'm about to pull the trigger. Not sure about the color. My doors are a light grey and the handles in the pictures look a lot darker.
 
#25 ·
My drivers side was cracked and about a dime sized portion where the screw is was completely broken off. After dissasembly I found that one side where the pin sits had broken off as well. I Crazy Glued everything back in place and then used JB Weld Kwik Plastic putty to reform the pin retainer and then worked it all around the recessed edge of the cup as well as almost all of the back of the cup for reinforcement. I was a little pressed for time and had to put the door back together before the full 2-3 hour cure time of the JB so I left the spring off as I didn't want to put any more pressure on the "new" pin retainer than I had to (and the handle was perfectly functional before the repair with no spring pressure). A day later and the handle is performing fine so far and there does not seem to be any need to reinstall the spring, the latch itself seems to pull the handle back to its' normal position just fine. I previously used the JB product to patch back together the rear hatch latch handle assembly and one of the park assist sensors which had broken off from the inside of the bumper and both fixes have held up so far (1 week). It's an unbelievable easy product to use.
 
#31 ·
I don't think the spring is needed. When I took the door
panel off, my spring wasn't install correctly, and worked
just fine.
 
#26 ·
I glued mine but wen I put tension trying to put the spring back it broke again :deadhorse: this thing is pissing me off don't know what the hell to do.:mah:
 
#27 ·
#30 ·
Set out to fix the driver side door handle, and bought
some JB Plastic Weld. Well I also bought some JB Water
Weld for a drain pipe and accidentally used the water
weld on the door! That's what I get for being in a big
hurry.


Anyway, it should work just as well.

http://www.hobbylinc.com/htm/jbw/jbw8277.htm









I'll let it set for a couple of days, and hope for the best. :dunno:
 
#32 ·
Unfortunately, I will have to buy the kit in the near future. The passenger side that was completely broken (that I fixed above), is still doing fine. However, the driver side (that is noticed a crack in while doing the passenger side and added some glue to it to hopefully stop a problem before it started), has cracked and it quite noticeable.

Kinda crappy that our door panels are falling apart on $45k+ vehicles...but nothing I can do about it now except fix it.
 
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