Plus 2 door opening rod

[The Veg]

Just spent a couple of hours tonight futzing with the door latch system...Neither the inside nor outside handle on the LH door would open it. Thought the latch was bad so removed it, cleaned and lubed as best I could (as it is riveted together), found it to work just fine, re-installed into the door. I'm now able to open the door from the outside without a problem, but from the inside it still doesn't work. And yes, the little tab on the latch is in the correct position. Looking at the workings when I pull the inside handle, the rod just doesn't seem to pull quite hard enough to sufficiently move the lever on the latch. The lever works if I reach a finger in and give it a tug. The rod is connected to the middle position on the lever, just as it was before all this started. None of the guide-clips seem to be binding. I do notice that the rode flexes a bit toward its front end when pulled, which doesn't surprise me given the off-centre force applied to it. I also notice a slight bend in the middle of the rod, maybe where somebody attempted to shorten it slightly. I haven't tried moving the rod to the shorter position on the lever, hoping to avoid increasing the required effort at the handle. Is that really even a good solution though? Ideally I'd like the rod to flex a lot less. Any suggestions?

[Gordon Sauer]

I made new door cards and I found that the door card positions interfered with the location of the inside door handle and it helped a little bit when I opened that up a tiny bit in the door card and was able to move it backwards and forwards but ultimately I ended up grinding off just a touch of the detente in the inside door handle metal casing so that the lever actually pulls back just about an eighth of an inch more which was enough to always release the door from the inside and I also do have my rod on the bottom hole of the mechanism that’s at the door edge, Gordon

[The Veg]

Thanks Gordon. The door card isn't an issue at present as it's been removed from the car for several years. At this point I'm tempted to braze a doubler onto the rod to reduce how much it flexes from the off-centre force.

Of course the problem is on the driver-side door. The one on the passenger-side opens with the greatest of ease, even just one finger pulling on the rod.