S4 internal door lock

[cadwell]

I am nearing the end of the body/chassis rebuild on S4 FHC. Being colour blind, the electrics were difficult but with the help of my wife labelling the colours and CRAVEN from this fabulous source of info, all is now complete, flashing headlights, the lot so I am quite pleased!
Small problem now which I cannot find anything on the forum to help, so it makes me think that I am doing something wrong.
External door locks work perfectly but connecting the rods for the internal locking is a problem.
Door lock has about 5mm of movement but the locking lever has about 10mm of movement from lock to open. This cannot be correct so what have I done wrong! Apart from cutting the rod and fitting a spring I cannot think of a solution, so thought I would appeal for help from the experts!
Need to sort this out so that I can start work on the engine, which I am really looking forward to.
Thanks
Peter

[JonB]

Bit of a wild guess, but perhaps they are handed? Or, you mixed up the opening rod with the locking rod. They’re similar in shape but one is about a cm longer than the other. I’m talking about the bent wire pieces between the lock and the door handle / door lock, not the long ones going to the inside door handle / lock.

[cadwell]

Many thanks for your suggestion but I have now realised that it was my ignorance causing the problem.
I was trying to fit the locking rod with the door open, and there was very little movement of the lock. However, just by chance I shut the door and voila! The lock lever moves the requisite 10mm or so, the same as the operating lever, so no problem. No doubt this is generally known by most people but I wasted a lot of time wondering how the hell the original rod worked, hence my idea for using a spring to take up the difference in movement between the lock and the lever.
Simple, shut the damn door and all works perfectly. You never stop learning with an Elan!

Peter