87-90 interior door handle stuck

On two of my fox body mustangs I have unfortunatley encountered
(somehow at the same time...;sigh the driver's side interior door
handle failure. I have had the actuator / and/or rod inside the
door-mechanism come apart; although in this case the interior handles
gave way and are now sticking out further than the properly aligned
passenger side. On both days it was particulary 'sticky' outside. While
I did not force the doors open in any way I believe the humidity
affected it just enough. When I look at the extended portion of the
handle I see the base block with the three or four 'teeth'. Comparing
to the passenger side one extra tooth is now visible(a sign of the
handle being out further). Being this the case I had hoped to just push
it back in, a nice quick 'click' would probably have been enough.
Though no matter how I 'gently' nudge, adjust or angle the handle it
will not budge. I have yet to remove the door panel as I cannot see how
getting to the backside of the mechanism will produce any results.
As in previous models it seems to be a solid block cased around the
'teeth.'

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Holly

"Hollywood" > wrote:

> On two of my fox body mustangs I have unfortunatley encountered
> (somehow at the same time...;sigh the driver's side interior door
> handle failure. I have had the actuator / and/or rod inside the
> door-mechanism come apart; although in this case the interior handles
> gave way and are now sticking out further than the properly aligned
> passenger side. On both days it was particulary 'sticky' outside. While
> I did not force the doors open in any way I believe the humidity
> affected it just enough. When I look at the extended portion of the
> handle I see the base block with the three or four 'teeth'. Comparing
> to the passenger side one extra tooth is now visible(a sign of the
> handle being out further). Being this the case I had hoped to just push
> it back in, a nice quick 'click' would probably have been enough.
> Though no matter how I 'gently' nudge, adjust or angle the handle it
> will not budge. I have yet to remove the door panel as I cannot see how
> getting to the backside of the mechanism will produce any results.
> As in previous models it seems to be a solid block cased around the
> 'teeth.'

A trip to a u-pick yard, armed with a good drill and quality 1/4 inch bit
to drill out rivets.

Or see if Ford still has them.

Sorry, but those are long proven mechanisms.... that you have two of them
with same problem where I've had 10 different old Foxes -driven by teens,
to boot- and never seen it, points to you pulling handle out too hard.

And I've never babied 'em... use TWO fingers only!

More is not better.


--
Yeh, I'm a Krusty old Geezer..