De Lorean EuroTec

Hey Folks,

How's everyone, seems like an age since the Classic TT and my lat chance to catch up with a couple of you guys.

Anyway onto my reason for this post. Advice / pointers needed.

Before Christmas my son and I headed out for a trip in the D, stopping out for a bite of lunch as you do. Everything was uneventful until my lad came to get back in the car whereupon the door refused to budge, both the outside and inside handles becoming 'slack' or at least showing reduced resistance but the door refusing to budge, my first thought was he'd shut the door crooked and jammed a latch.

After a stella impression of Spiderman we managed to get in and home at which point the door opened just as normal hmm. Shutting the door again, this time making sure to close it square etc and again it wouldn't open handle feel as before. I hopped back in and went for a short 'bumpy' drive, thank you IOM Gov, once home the door opened as normal. I sprayed PTFE lube into each lock mechw but that didn't seem to help matters.

At this point I decided I didn't need this sort of shit right before Christmas so gingerly shut the door, drove her into the garage after a bit of jumping and jiving managed to get the door open and at that point walked away telling it exactly what i thought of it.

Fast forward to today I finally summed up enough enthusiasm to pop the top inner panel. Testing the handles/wires etc and everything seems clean and moves without issue, to add insult to injury I can currently close and open the door without a problem. I must have tried at least 15 times and the damn thing just works!

So what should I do now?

Cheers in advance

Buy a lottery Ticket

Hi,

had this happen too ....

The pull handles/ rods interior or exterior need to be 'fully retracted'' before the doors receivers will go locked or unlocked position.
I used the spring loaded return of the interior handle and fixed the connecting rod whereby doesn't slide at its connection point , this will assist the retraction of the pull handle mechanism consequently allowing the opening of the lock to unlock. hope this all makes sense

Most important thing is ....the interior & exterior pull handles/rods/ receiver locks must retract all the way this allows the door to lock/ unlock. if this is off kilter by the smallest amount it wont happen.

Dave

Admin-bloke wrote:Buy a lottery Ticket

Ha ha

Thanks Dave, yes it does make sense. I did a bit of Googling before delving in, I even watched he is shan't be named video on the subject (Pretty sure that's my door!) and everything I can see checks out.

It's more like the 'drag' is within the latch mechs, well at least one. Hence my spraying PTFE lube as best I could into each latch. it was particularly cold on the day in question so I guess the grease could have become 'too stiff' if that makes sense.

Anyone have experience with the latch mechs themselves giving problems?

I'll lub up the latch/bar mechs and see how I get on.

I helped someone open a drivers door and the problem was with the long bar that goes to the latch was slightly bent so not actually opening the locking catch. Short term solution was to leave the front lock in the unlocked position so it didn't get stuck again until the weather gets warmer to then straighten out the connecting rod

Funny, I had my car out late November when it was freezing - had issues with the passenger door getting stuck too.

Managed to get some spray oil into the latches and worked everything back and forward a few times - seemed to sort it.

These things are only meant to be out on days when the temp s >= 15 degrees

dmc4087 wrote:These things are only meant to be out on days when the temp s >= 15 degrees

Agreed! or is that just me!

I'm hoping that as I've now owned the thing for nearly 7 years now, doesn't time fly please no BTTF puns, and never had a problem before things like bent rods would have shown themselves long ago.

I'll lube her up good and proper and hopefully that will sort things

Manxmann wrote:
I'll lube her up good and proper and hopefully that will sort things

Ooooh Matron!