So my ‘93 has a broken/not working left-side door handle. The door lock still works and the handle can be pulled, but it just isn’t pushing the rods inside of the door down far enough. I have a new triangle coming in tomorrow, but I was wondering if this is really an outside door handle issue, or if I need to pull the door apart to work with the insides. Has anyone had an issue like this?

 

The rods may be bent or dislocated.

The root issue is usually lubrication of the working components, and opening the door to re-lube everything is recommended. But, you could replace the handle-only and see if it fixes your symptoms.

 

The handle was working fine for about 4-5 months before seizing up and being inoperable. The plastic handle ended up breaking, and after I replaced it with a metal one, it worked just fine until recently.
Hopefully it's just the triangle being broken, I'm putting a new one in tomorrow.

 

You really should go through the whole mechanism. There is a whole write-up on inspecting, servicing, and modifying this for future reliability. Would be worth it to make sure the "new" piece you ordered works fine.

 

Will do.

 

IMHO you can't beat a whole new door handle from Mazda. They aren't that much and that solves 99% of the issues. Once replaced lubricate them once a year and they will be good for a VERY long time. Did mine about 15 years ago and they are still working like new.

I really don't think it's worth trying to fix them or just replace the plastic broken handle part, everything else in the handle is typically worn out and all that wear and slop is what caused the handle to break in the first place. The metal handles just fix the symptom, not the problem.

Dale