1974 914 Passenger door will not open

[Chewable]

Hello,

I just purchased my first Porsche a 1974 914 from a Junkyard down the street from my office.

This car was obviously loved for a long time and just fell into disrepair and neglect the last few years. Currently I am replacing the fuel lines and doing a general clean up and trying to get it on the road for the summer.

The car came with no keys and someone tried to jimmy or rip the passenger door handle. The outside handle is broken and the door will not open. I have made it to the point of delicately removing the passenger door panel. So I now have access to the interior of the door, but I cannot figure out what I need to remove or turn to get the door to open.

Has anyone else seen this?

[Dave at Pelican Parts]

So the door will not open with either the flapper handle on the outside, nor the lever on the inside?

If you can, try pulling the inside lever. That pulls on a rod which opens up the latch. I don't remember what if anything on the latch you can push or pull. You might take the driver's door panel off and look at what happens when you use the lever on that side.

The outer handle pushes on a C-shaped metal bit inside the door, and that moves the latch to the open position. If you're not concerned about having to get a new outer handle (or used), you can finish removing the handle. There's an Allen-screw inside the door that goes into the front of the handle assembly (#5 in the pic below) and the stud that the rear bolt goes on is not that hard to break off the handle. Or you can drill a hole in the tang of the handle that the stud sticks out of, and take the stud off that way.



--DD

[Chewable]

The car actually came with a replacement handle so I will first try and remove what is left if the broken handle in there.

[Chewable]

I got the door handle off last night. I have a much better idea of what is supposed to happen now. It seems that the C shaped metal bar that actually "locks" into place over the post in the frame is most likely rusted or seized. I sprayed the internal components with "Kroil" in the hope that it will free it up.

[Chewable]

I am ever so slowly working on this car.

This last weekend we finally got the passenger door to open.

A friend of mine was fiddling with the door and we had another friend get in the car and actually kick the door.

It finally opened. I removed mechanism and completely cleaned everything and got it all back to working order.

I rebuilt the outside door handle with the parts that came with the car and now I have a fully working Passenger door. It actually works a little better than the drivers door.

I will need to re-pin the locks at some point. I did not get a key with the car and I have bought a new ignition with Key. At some point I want to get all the locks to work with that key. I know it is possible. I just need to find a set of the lock pins.

[porsche930dude]

lol good job. Reminds me of a Saab sonett we saved. it was more difficult and took longer to get the passenger door open than it was to rebuild the engine. Slow and steady works just fine. The important part is that you saved it from the crusher