Having done a few of these now, and discovering that there are various tricks to making life easier, and avoiding damaging some of the more sensitive components, I thought it might be worth having this in the archives.
So we start with the drivers door handle - the one with the lock. I don't know why we start here, other than this is where I started really, because doing Peter's car we discovered a door handle which had been snapped presumably by someone trying to force it open when locked.
To remove the handle, pull the handle (as if to open the door) and then undo the countersunk screw behind the handle. This should be a flathead screwdriver job, and hopefully will be fairly easy to do - even on the very stubborn rusted doors I did with 60 years of rust weren't difficult.
Secondly there is a small nut to remove on the inside of the door shut - the door seal may interfere with this one, but careful use of a BA spanner (4 I think) should do it.
Now it is just a matter of jiggling the handle out without damaging your paintwork. No problem with Peter's car, we are repainting it anyhow
There is nothing else holding the handle on besides the screw and nut, so persevere, carefully, if it isn't loose already. Be very careful of paintwork when removing, because the chromed handle will scratch, and the stud on the end of the handle definitely will, and there is nothing padding the hole or the chrome off the paint.
You should now have a door handle loose that you can take to the bench. Hopefully. If you have not managed to get this far without hurting yourself or losing your temper, get an adult to help
I would quite strongly advise reading this guide, then going and soaking all the pins and other fittings on the now removed handles with a whole load of WD40 before you start. Some handles literally fell apart, others took so much abuse to get the pins out that it distorted the pins, making the job even more difficult. This was because of a lot of rust between the pin and the mechanism, and some decent fluid left to find its way in should help with this.
Trick one is removing the spring,visible just to the left of the main mechanism above. The way to do this is to put the handle in the vice - remember that this is soft and finished metal, and you need soft jaws or you will mark it badly. But put it in the vice as below, pointing downward, and gripping only the handle part, so that you can "open" the handle when it is in the vice.
This is the actual trick - open the handle by pivoting it "open" and then put something of about the right size into the gap so that it can't close. Now you can access the two bent over ends of the spring without resorting to a lot of swearing or breaking the laws of physics. This assumes that you can unlock the handle - if you can't then you are stuck with the swearing and just doing your best, or try skipping to the section where we remove the lock and see if you can do that before the other steps of the process..
Note here I have used an old spanner as a spacer, because these handles and components are all being rechromed. If you are not rechroming, I would strongly advise you use a lump of wood or similar.
WIth a pair of pliers, bend the ends of the spring as straight as you can get them. They aren't going to be perfect, but they just need to be fairly straight so that you can push them back through the hole.
The spring goes right through that long section, so what you need to push it through is the right size punch with a decent length shaft on it, as in photo below. Resist the temptation to pull on the spring - that way lies bent springs that you won't ever get back into shape. Even this way you might end up with a bent spring or two, but it will probably be recoverable.
Once you have pushed the ends of the spring into the hole, it causes less damage to the spring if you now remove whatever you put into the mechanism to stop it closing and "close" the handle - this means the spring doesn't have to bend as much, and because you have now bent the spring ends straight(ish) you don't need to get much more than a thin punch in there. This isn't critical, and you might get away with it, but worth taking your time and getting it right unless you have a lot of spare springs.
Luckily we have a lot of spare broken door handles for some reason, they all use the same spring.
Next up, and this varies a bit between the locked drivers handle and the other handles on the car, are the pins and collars holding things together. They obviously need to come apart if you actually want to get the handle stripped down.
There is a hollow pin, this is what holds the two chromed bits together. This is removed by putting the handle in the vice, with soft jaws again as below, and giving it a few taps. It does take a good sharp tap on some of these, if it isn't moving apply WD40 and leave it to work its way in, no point in hammering it to bits. The best tool for the job is a punch of the right size, as above - using other tools is likely to damage the hollow pin, which you don't want, unless you also have a whole lot of spare door handles or have a lathe for making new collars. Note that you have to hit it in the right direction - if you try and hit it in the opposite direction to shown in the photo above, it will hit the lock barrel housing and damage the chrome, then damage the softer metal of the casting, then it will snap off the barrel from the main body, a weak point on these handles. So just make sure before you start hammering.
Now you will find, if you take the handle out of the vice, that the two chromed bits can now move around. This is important, and the reason for this becomes clear when you move them and see the either a countersunk bolt or pin, depending on which model you've got. No idea why they are different, but hardly difficult to work out. If it has a slot in the top, don't hit it with a punch.
Awful photo, but shows the position you will be able to move the parts into, you'll see the screw head/pin heads when you do this. In the photo you can just about see the slotted countersunk head to the top right of the grubby steel plate.
It doesn't seem to matter which way round you do this little job, but I've found that it gives you more scope to move the one half of the handle out of the way if you remove the longer pin that prevents the door from over-opening first. This means you can move the two halves around rather a lot, and helps with getting the soft jaws of the vice to grip the mechanism to get the other one out.
After you have removed it, if you have a screw head visible you need to undo this - it will be a fairly short bolt. Then put your punch down through the hole you have just exposed, and a gentle tap should remove the short pin from the other side. Remember which side you took this out of, as hammering pins through the threads for the bolt on the other side won't do them much good, and you won't get it in. This is also why you don't want to hammer it through the other way! Note that some handles do not have a bolt, and instead have a pin fitted. You'll see what I mean if you've got one. Rest assured that if it has a pin in there, it shouldn't have any threads, but wonders do never cease in what some people will do to bodge things.
On a standard door handle, at this point you have done all the breakdown, and the steel plate should come out from the chromed casting. Once this is done, the two chromed parts should come apart fairly easily, and you are finished taking things apart for cleaning/chroming/storage etc.
On the drivers locking door handle, you have a bit more work to do to remove the lock mechanism. This is done by removing the pin that holds the lock in its barrel.
Another awful photo, but really just to show you where the pin is through the barrel. Note on many of the handles stripped, this was very gunked up with grease and dirt, so the pin was not always visible. But I promise it is there, so clean it until you find it, without a pin the locks would fall out when you drove the car.
You need a fairly long straight punch for this, similar to the one used for removing the spring.
Once this pin is removed, you need to pull the lock out of its barrel. If you have the key, this can be done by turning the key 90 deg and gently pulling, perhaps with a bit of wiggling to get things moving along. It doesn't matter if the lock is locked or open at this point, it will come out in either position.
If you don't have the key, a carefully used hook will catch in the mechanism so you can pull it out.
Here she comes...
Once the lock is removed, put some tape around it to ensure that the bits don't fall out - if that happens you are going to spend a long time getting the lock working again.
Now just slide out the square bolt from the end of the lock, this has a square and round end, so note which way up it is before removing.
That should leave you with everything in tiny little bits. All the components for both mechanisms are shown below, along with the order in which you should remove them (left to right) if you've been following my instructions:
Above is locking door handle components. From left to right they are: spring, hollow pin, screw and mills pin that holds position, striker plate that hits mechanism to open the door, mills pin, door handle casting, straight pin that prevents over-extension of the handle, lock barrel, lock bolt, lock housing casting.
Below is non-locking handle, components are largely the same but just a few bits missing because it doesn't have a lock.
Some other things we discovered in doing this:
1. All the handles are different to each other, because they are all handed both chromed parts can only be used on the doors to which they are fitted.
2. There are different handle types, some have a sharper ridge down the centre than others, and some have a lip around the lock face. We don't know enough about the cars the spares were taken from to identify the differences perhaps by age or model, but don't assume if it looks like Javelin that it matches those on your car.
3. Jupiter handles are not interchangeable with any Javelin handles.
4. The springs and pins used are the same and interchangeable across all the handles we tried, so if your mechanism is broken on one door, all hope is not lost if you have a spare from another door.
5. Some of the hollow pins have a hex centre, this helps with freeing them up if required, but are still pushed out using a punch, there are no threads in there. Others have a circular hole, these are all interchangeable.
6. All the broken handles are broken in the same place - drivers handle, either side of the lock. Presumably this is a weak point and easily stressed when a locked door is forced - worth being gentle with your door handles, as finding good drivers door handles in particular is going to become increasingly difficult.
Jack.
