Hi folks,

The external door handle on my 90 civic LX has cracked (can't open the door from the outside now) and I have bought a replacement from a local wreckers, but really have no idea how to go about putting the new one in.

I took a look at things and removed some screws from the inside panel. How many screws should I be looking for to take out from the inside?

After the screws are out, what would I be looking to do next? Since this is an LX, there is no crank for the window since it's all power locks, window, etc.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

 

Yikes... If you don't know how to get a door panel off this is probably a little too much for you. This is very easy to do...

1.) Take off door panel.
2.) Pop off the rod linkage for the latch and lock.
3.) Take off the two nuts.
4.) Pull out the handle.

 

Oh, I'm sure I can do this, but I just want to make sure I don't break anything doing something stupid. I'll go slow with the door panel. If things don't seem like they want to come off, I'll stop and assume I've missed a step and reevaluate the situation.

 

Well then what are you waiting for? Stop wasting time on the Internet and get to it son!

 

Panel is off. 5 screws removed and then just pulling the panel off slowly to unlatch from the plastic "fasteners".

Next up... step 2.

 

I've done step 3, but am having problems with step 2.

How do I get the lock out of the old handle? It seems to be stuck in there pretty solid. Do I have to "punch" it out somehow? Also how do I unhook the rod going to the external handle? The space is pretty confined in there and I can't see how it's connected.

I just don't want to force something the wrong way possibly making things worse.

Thanks in advance.

 

you dont have to pop the rod off. if you notice on the door handle there is a rod with a type of bolt that connects the rod to the door handle. carefully twist and turn the door handle like your taking off a bolt. but first remove the 2 10mm bolts. then just re-install the new handle in reverse order.

 

i swapped out my key'ed door handle with a keyless one from a sedan...

 

I found some info here which has some information on the lock part and the rod in the picture in that thread looks like mine, although what it connects to is completely different. The setup in the picture looks a lot more spacious than mine.

I guess there are some clips I can't see holding the lock in.

I can't really see what connections the rod has from the angle I have, but I'll look again to see what I might be able to twist around. I can't even really get my hand in there, so this should be fun.

I'll try this again tomorrow and see where I end up.

 

there is a small horse shoe looking clip. just pry it off with a flat head. then the handle will come off after you twist it off.

 

I took all the rods out with mine.


These things were such a PITA btw.

 

really? mine was out in less than 10 seconds. maybe its cuz i have a crx and not a sedan? j/k i didnt want to brake anything in case i decide to re-install the key door handles. i felt like removing it as a single unit would brake.

 

Once you had it off, how difficult was it to put back on? Seems like it could be a PITA for sure.

 

pair of pliers and the sucker is back on in seconds

 

I was painting my car at the time, so putting it back in and trying not to scuff the paint around where the handle sits was epic PITA.

The rear door handles on the sedan are really confined by the shape of the wheel arch, it's really quite difficult.

 

Fixed it all up. My "horseshoe clip" was pretty rusty, and it took some force to get it off, but it came off eventually although the shape of it after the fact didn't quite look the same.

I also noticed the auto wrecker gave me a handle with a busted spring (or maybe it broke after I tried it a few times since it was so rusty) so the handle doesn't reset itself, but at least I can open my door now. The side of the handle attached to the rod was cracked, which didn't allow the handle to pull the rod up before.

It didn't look like there was any easy way to put my old spring on the new handle as the part the spring is attached to seems "riveted" on. 2 steps forward, 1 back... c'est la vie.

 

Try some wd40?

 

wd40 on which spot? The handle actually isn't all that bad without the spring pulling it back in. It kinda falls back most of the way anyway.

The horseshoe clip was a PITA to take off, but it was cake to put back on... I thought it was going to be hell getting it back on cause I couldn't see a thing; turns out putting that clip back on was the easiest part.