I replaced the weatherstripping for both front doors today, and adjusted the door strikers after I was finished with the job to get the best fit to the adjacent doors. I also have had an issue with both front handles (and especially the Right Rear) where there requires substantial movement of the handle before the latch releases. The right rear door releases at the VERY end of handle travel.

I pulled the door panels off, and found this little guy connecting the door handle linkage to the latch mechanism.



Here's a closeup:



It took a few minutes to gently figure out how to release the clip without breaking it. (Tonight's nightmare will be accidentally breaking it, rendering the outside handle useless and scouring the internet and junkyards for that tiny plastic clip!)

Anyway, the clip has two pieces. The U-profile body and a securing clip which slides into the side. The tang (front left of clip) is pressed in, but there is also another identical tang at the rear right of the clip (out of sight), which needs to be pressed in simultaneously. This will allow the securing clip to slide out the side of the body, releasing the link rod. By pressing the white lever and clip down (taking up any slack in the movement), while also manipulating the outside handle to take up the slack at the top end of the link rod, you can clip the bottom of the rod back into the body, slide the securing clip back in, and eliminate just about all play in the mechanism.

My doors now unlatch after moving the handle only about 1/3 of the way through it's full range of motion.

Hope this helps someone looking to adjust their door handle linkage or trying to get that clip off without breaking it.

Stupid Me... I have a set of new front door handle gaskets and forgot to put them on while I did this job.... Doh!

 

good tip and pics ..I adjusted mine when I fitted a replacement rear handle back in October and it worked beautifully, releasing early in its travel and as smooth as silk.

Unfortunately, it seemed to slowly go out of adjustment over the last 2 months and the coup de grace on Monday (in a downpour), the replacement snapped (again).

New handle on order and might try modifying/repairing the broken handle as getting fed up of replacing them. 94MY car handles aren't supposed to be as fragile as the earlier design ...don't believe a word of it. This is a $hit design.

Larry

 

Great pictures and detailed write-up. Mine have a lot of play and I thought I had to live with it. Also, were the door seals difficult to replace? My driver door seal is really torn up. thanks, Ren

 

 

Arrived today, will fit next week if I can get some garage space, not doing this job on the street.




shiny, manuf. date 2007


Larry

 

Larry, there is a trick for these door handles adjustment, just install a small extra nut FIRST on the rod thread(that you see above the clip) so instead of securing it onto the nylon plastic thread only, which after 20+ years is pretty much useless, metal nut will be pushing against the top of that plastic clip first. This way it will never go out of adjustment again, you'll just need to adjust both, the clip and nut when setting it all up
When I changed door handle on mine, it would not stay adjusted for more than a month until I added that nut, mind you, reason for many XJ40 broken handles are old door seals...
As I explained it to Naki some time ago, best way to understand this is to remove the old(often distorted and messed up) seal, your doors should then open and close with a push a of finger. Its just the old seal harden up with age, often cracks somewhere or there is rust on the door lip under the seal and rubber no longer compresses like it used to so the doors are much harder to close and open, its literally being pushed out of the car, hence the broken handles.

Obviously if the door handle is out of adjustment and barely opens at the end of its travel and you still trying to open the doors it will of course snap for sure too

 

Hey thanks! Definitely going to try that, makes sense!!
Any idea what thread size is?

Larry

ps - think my seals are OK (fronts are replacements) but will have a closer look at the rears ...

 

Went to fit the new rear handle today but much to my surprise, the handle wasn't broken after all - it was just REALLY out of whack.

I picked up a couple of little nuts at the local hardware store and installed them on the rear door and the front passenger door rods as Katar suggested. Did the setup/adjustment/lubrication and the doors are operational again.

The passenger door really needed adjustment - it was just like Nick's door handle ..only actuating at the very end of travel. Now all sorted out and hopefully will stay that way as the little nuts on the thread add a whole other layer of insurance - the rod can't slip in the clip with that nut acting as a buffer. Great tip, thanks again Katar!

ps now have spare rear (new) handle ...

Larry

 

Door opening is still perfect two months later and I use the handles with confidence instead of dread

Perfect solution!

Larry

 

hey larry, wondering what size nut, if you remember?

 

I think it was a 1/4"?

I got them from the hardware store so unlikely metric ..

Larry

 

you’re the man i’ll check it out. my passenger rear door will blow the pwr lock fuse bc it can’t pull up the lock, plus the handles needs to be pulled alllll the way, and then some.

 

I am having the same problem with my passenger rear door releasing at the end of the travel and being difficult to open. When I took it apart, the metal rod was did not require an adjustment. Any other ideas as to what I should be checking? Could it just need lubrication?

Also - the door handle has two pieces coming out the back. One to the metal rod in question - does the other have a purpose?

Thanks

 

It may not seem like it needs adjusting at first, but if it opens at the END of travel, then it does need adjusting. Try it again.

Larry

 

Thanks for the info NTL, this helped me a bunch. Have a good one good buddy.
Cheers.

 

Happy to report that door handles are still operating without any problems, best thing I ever did was to follow @katar83 's advice and fit the small nut to the rod.

Just to clarify the fitment procedure and as a small token of my appreciation here's an illustration of the arrangement.



all the best

Larry

 

BTW, the threads on that rod are M4 so that is the size of nut needed to do this.

 

Pretty sure the nuts I fitted were SAE, unsure of thread but they came from the local hardware store.

Larry

 

I just did this same exact nuts on the rod trick on two doors last week on my MY1994 and they were M4 threads on that rod.
Maybe earlier year rods were SAE threads.

 

mines a late car, good to know both metric and sae work though!

Larry