Do I have door lock Bowden cable trouble ?

[RFP]

Well, dang... when opening the passenger door from the inside, the [brand new aluminum] door release handle DOES open the door, but just barely and as the lock releases, it makes an awful metallic 'clank-clank' noise.

If I open the door and then move the lock on the door as though the door was closed, the inside release lever will not release the lock... I have to give it a 'tug' as I pull on the inside door release handle.

If I disconnect the pull rod from the inside door handle and just pull directly on the pull rod, it does exactly the same thing.

Of course, the outside door handle works perfectly.

It did this once before, but had seemed to have stopped... now it's back, just as irritating as ever.

Thanks,

Rob

[RFP]

OK, I think that I broke the code on this nagging problem.

I took the door panel off and everything worked wonderfully! So, I put the door panel back on and with it loosely in place, everything still worked great. Then when I installed the door handle just about 'tight enough' the inside pull stopped operating the door. I pulled the door handle off along with the door panel and carefully examined the pull rod and soon discovered that the crank that the pull rod attaches to was hitting the door panel when the handle was tightened. I finally figured out that I could adjust the effective length of the Bowden cable by moving the mounting collar (held in place by two screws in slots). A bit of adjusting and now everything works great. The pull rod crank no longer hits the back of the door panel, so all's well.

[merlinfe]

Very nice detective work. You may well save someone a similar fate in the future.