Door troubles

[cheesypeanut]

Got a 5 door and my drivers side doors are giving me some trouble.

I cannot get the rear door to open from the outside unless I apply force inwards (lean on the door whilst pulling the handle). It opens fine from the inside.

The front door is not closing fully, unless slammed fairly hard.

Anyone have any ideas what's causing these problems and know of or can recommend any solutions?

Cheers

[Ozz]

The rear door is most likely a worn hammer on the mechanism. Take the handle off (single screw on endge of door) and you'll see a plastic hammer, which always wears out/misaligns, try just unwinding it further to see if this fixes it. If not I used a washer on the hammer to increase the area it acts on, which worked fine!

The front door has probably dropped slightly on its hinges, when you open it does it sag down slightly? If so the door needs rehanging, which is a bit of a tricky job to get right, or you can use my bodge involving a plank of wood and a trolley jack, and some gentle "tweaking" 

If it hasnt sagged my next guess would be a sticky latch mechanism, try oiling it up see if it makes any difference.

[cheesypeanut]

Thanks for the reply. I'm not sure if I'm understanding you right, but by hammer do you mean the bit of the handle that strikes down on the actual locking mechanism to open the door? If so, I have already tried a different handle on the door so surely this eliminates this as a possible problem?

As for tweaking the front door, whereabouts to I want to position the jack, closer or further to or from the hinges?

Hope this makes sense.

[[han]]

i replaced my doors from another golf and have a similar problem... something to do wth where the catch sits...

my brother fixed mine.. but im sure its an adjuster thing...

[Ozz]

Not necessarily, could be that the catch on your door has dropped a bit. If you look at the handle when its out of the car you'll see a plastic screw with a round head on which strikes the flat plate of the door catch to open it. This unscrews for adjustment. Have a feel inside the door (with the door card off) to see if the hammer is missing the catch and if so in what way, i.e to either side or vertically, then adjust as necessary.

As for "tweaking" the door, best to jack further from the hinge to get a bit of leverage, plus you dont want the door to move upwards at the hinge, its the catch end that wants to be raised. Another way to fix it can be to put washers in the bottom hinge to make it hang a bit straighter. Jacking worked fine for my door tho, and still have no problems with it 

[rubjonny]

1) Before you do anything complicated, take the door handle off and grease up all the moving & touching parts on the handle & inside the door.  Theres 1 screw on the back of the handle and another behind the trim on the outside of the handle

2) Dont jack the door unless you know it has dropped, 1st try loosening the catch pin and moving it around.  If you have to really slam it, you probably just have to move it outwards a fraction.  Door dropping is normally only a problem on the driver side door, and more so on a 3 door as its longer & heavier.  Passenger side on a 5 door is unlikly to have dropped unless its a high milaer, and had a LOT of passengers.

[cheesypeanut]

Right halfway there! Thanks for your help; I've got the front door operating as it should and it no longer requires slamming.

However I've whipped off the rear door card and can see that the hammer is not catching the lock mechanism fully.

From looking at the other door the hammer should rest on the locking mechanism, and when the handle is pulled push the mechanism downwards. The problem is that on my door the hammer rests about 5mm above the mechanism and when the handle is pulled it pushes the mechanism downwards, but not fully enough to release the lock.

So, any suggestions as to a solution? I hope I've made sense.

[Ozz]

Have you unwound the hammer to its full extent? If so I would imagine that the spring in the catch is worn and no longer comes back to the point it is supposed to. In your situation, I would probably improvise a new hammer longer than the original, using a longer screw with a washer and a nut holding the washer it in place, screwed into where the original hammer was.

Thats what I'd do, tho RubJ probably has a cleverer solution, he seems to have one for every problem 

[cheesypeanut]

I've been looking at this handle for a good 20 minutes and still can't find this screw! The only screw that I can see in the handle is the screw that holds the metal handle mechanism inside the plastic surround.

[rubjonny]

I'd have both rear handles off and sit them side by side, see if there is any obvious difference.  If the driver side is quite different I'd pinch another out of the local scrappy and give that a go.  If they are both the same then it would seem the problem lies inside the door, and I'd then remove the lock block from the door and check out the operating lever, perhaps the one the handle is sopposed to catch against is bent down lightly and needs adjusting.

Swaping the lock block out is fiddly , especially hooking up all the levers etc, but isn't too bad if you take your time