one of the door handle nuts fell into an area where i couldn't see it nor reach it and i tried to rattle it around but couldnt get it to show itself, finished re-installing the door handle and put the door panel on temporarily to get to the store to buy a nut that will fit...

and now the door is apparently locked, won't unlock, and won't open, and i can't get the door panel off with the door closed????

wtf kind of retarded door handle designer would put a nut directly over a critical clearance zone like that in such a way that there's no way to get at the nut

wtf can i do??!?!???

 

bah i managed to peel back the corner of the panel because i didnt put it on all the way and take a look... the door handle is moving something at the latch mechanism so i dont know wtf is wrong

and after some pondering with a flashlight i managed to get the door open by opening it with the handle when the key was still in and turned to unlock

so ... "apparently"... some part of the handle mechanism is unlocking but not maintaining the unlock so it relocks as soon as the key is returned to neutral in the cylinder

any suggestions?

and how the hell do i get that nut out it fell into the area where there is no hand access :/

 

this is like the 3rd or 4th time ive taken off the door handles w/ no problems before btw

i put a new cylinder on the passenger side and its working great but not sure about the cylinder on the driver side as its not in good shape

and the driver side is slightly different there are like 2 extra pieces or something
:smiley_12

 

With some inginuity you should be able to pop the top half of the door panel back without opening the door. With it halfway off you can reach to the back and open the lock by hand :-\

Only thing I can think of

 

yeh after like literally 4 hours to change a single cylinder

the manual unlock mechanism on the driver side has 2 screws holding it in place, only 1 of them was still there and it was like 90% loose, so i had secured that one in place... which had the effect of disabling the manual slider because of the swing arm behind it being cockblocked by the screw and/or tightness

so i put the remaining screw on the top hole instead of the bottom and secured it firmly and that allowed the manual lock/unlock slider to work properly

thhhhhhhen i dropped that god damn nut behind the window and latch assembly like two more ******* times because of having to use a swivel extension on the ratchet and the nut wanting to go on perfectly aligned and not helping itself out to start with

so having fastened that all in place securely the door works fine now

but the dumbass that sold me the replacement door handles/ignition switch/trunk cylinder sold me a set where everything works 100% except the motherfucking driver side cylinder which is the only part that i actually wanted/needed!!!!

stupid thing won't lock w/ a key and even w/ unlock the cylinder is in pretty bad shape

damnit

i seriously hate ebay

and not using ebay is even worse

ARRRGHETURHIWurehiwehr

 

Buy shaved hinges? lol get rid of the handle all together

 

i'm pretty sure you can get the panel off without having the door open

 

you can pry one end of it but the vent (on FC3S5) portion prevents removing the front

for whatever reason, opening the door w/ the key still turned toward unlock worked

freaked me out for a bit i thought i was gwan have go dukes of hazzard style lol

 

LOL, yeah your right about the door panel now that i think about it again (ive had to remove them to many times) good luck fixing it

 

magnet on a stick?

 

I've never had a problem putting the nuts back on by using a straight extension.

Also, I'm pretty sure there's a hole at the bottom of the door that things can fall out of. I've dropped 2 nuts before due to clumsiness and had no problem getting them back. 1 fell out the bottom and the other I got with a magnet by fishing for it. Not a difficult concept...