Pro

(Im referring to the exterior). Is this pretty much a problem with these older model cars? Mine is REALLY loose. Sometimes I wonder if there will soon be a day where I will enter from the passenger side.

Is this something pretty easy to fix? Hopefully not too expensive.

Appreciate it.

aklim

The door handle and mapholder will have to be removed then the cardboard with cloth will have to go. From there you have access to the internals of the door and you will need to unscrew the 2 nuts holding the handle in and release the lever connected to it and replace the handle.

dave89gta

Before you go out and buy a replacement handle, I would simply tightee the two nuts inside the door. I had a loose passenger handle, and a broken driver side handle. I tightened the passenger, and replacent the driver's side. Driver's side is slready loose, but the other one is ok.

--Dave

Pro

You guys are nuts. haha, I couldnt find anything in that door. Just some metal lines with a few springs. I have no idea what to tighten.

And the haynes manual is a pos book - no help at all.

doug791

go to www.helminc.com and buy the service manual from there. If youd do youll never have to ask a question like this ever again. Best investment i ever made for my car.

dave89gta

You got the door panel off, right? That is the easy part. Now look at where the door handle comes through the door skin (might need a flashlight). There is a rod/cable type thing that goes from the handle to the latch. Look beside that and you should see two studs coming though the door from the outside. They have nuts on them (hopefully). Tighten these up, or loosen the if youre replacing the handle. There's not always a hole in the door to get at these nuts, so you may have to get creative with the socket extensions.

--Dave

DanTheIROCMan

I just used a pair of long needle nose. Worked very good.

Pro

Hmmm... no nuts on the bolts. But they are tight nevertheless.

It seems like the play comes from the actual verticle rod that runs from the handle down to the latch... not sure how to tighten those?

I guess when it cools down I can spend more time with it.

BTW, does GM still make these door handles?

dave89gta

GM probably still makes them. I picked my new one up at PepBoys. I'm sure AutoZone has them too. It'll run ya about $18-$25.

--Dave

doug791

im saying it again its worth the 90 bucks. Investment wise its right up there with buying coolant and oil.

dave89gta

True. The single greatest book I ever bought. Then I had to go and sell it.

You will never need our help again!

--Dave

DanTheIROCMan

There's definitely nuts on the bolts. Otherwise, what would prevent them from falling off??

aklim

That may be the problem. Someone welded it to the door. Look again. If there are no nuts, that may be a problem because they fell off and are being held in by the rods.

Pro

Haha its not that bad.
It looks like it has these little plastic triangular shaped nuts on the inside on the bolts (and it looks likes the plastic is glued to the metal.

Ill try and take some pics tomorrow. It was the first time I had taken the door panel off on this car before - so obviously it was a pain in the ***. Kind of hot outside, so I really gave up on the internals early.

DanTheIROCMan

Sounds like a Micky Mouse job if you ask me... Sounds like someone lost the original nuts and just improvised. I would go to the dealer or junk yard and get the original nuts. They are very thin nuts, but they do work. They just seem to losen up a bit over time.

One other thing, if I can recall correctly... Even after the nuts are tightened as much as they can be, the handle will still be a little wobbly, at least they were on my car. In this case, it wasn't the bolts/nuts attaching the assembly to the door, it was the actual handle where it attached to the base assembly. The tolerance was not very tight, probably lossened up over there years. I think I remember putting some silicon in there, but I will examine them today and let you know what I did to make them completely wobble free.