Club 80-90 Forums

So, there is some wobble in the door handle on both of my sliding doors.

Seems very common and doesn't seem to cause a huge issue, apart from scratching paintwork.

But.... why does it wobble?

It seems to door only locks when the handle is pushed towards the door, so its seems like its supposed to.

Also, when you remove the handle, I can see that there is a collar which moves against the door handle....

So why?

Take the door card off from the inside and you should see a screw on the other side of the handle. Probably just needs nipping up.

The screw is (was) tight.  

I noticed you can buy a grommet/collar made of rigid plastic, which is designed to stop the wobble.  I'm going to design and 3d print my own, but wondered if the wobble was intended or just wear/age.

often the handle has been removed previously and the square holed washer gets lost in the bottom of the door when withdrawing it, peeps don't realise its there and so don't replace it when reassembling

the foam seal is usually degraded and missing too, I don't know if any vendor this side of the pond still has the foam seal


oddly the spacer washer with the square hole isn't shown in Bentley for the later lock, nor listed in the parts catalogue for the later years but it is a thing, carried over from the bay



part number 211 843 717; I recently added one to my wobbly handle which also had fully tightened screw on the inside and low and behold the wobble that allowed handle to scratch and wear away the paint was sorted - I'm not sure if anyone other than heritage have them in stock

That's interesting Aidan, I've never seen that either. Our handles been off many times. It has a reasonable wobble to it, but doesn't scratch the paint.

One more for the 'one day' list

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I don't seem to have the square holed washer.... thats interesting.

I figured out what the moving part is within the door (I mentioned initially).  The moving part moves across then the key is used, and slides across to (un)lock the door.

Where does the squared holed washer site in relation to the mechanism?

Heritage describe it as a shim... i guessing it sits under the screw on the inside of the door pulling the handle in.

Heaver wrote: ↑21 Jul 2024, 07:22 Heritage describe it as a shim... i guessing it sits under the screw on the inside of the door pulling the handle in.

It goes between the lock assembly and the inside handle afaik

as Ian says it goes on the square shank of the handle before the handle is fitted into the lock, you'd fit the rubber seal to the door and the foam seal to the round shank of the handle before inserting it - now it is possible there are slight variations in the door handles which meant the square holed washer was deleted in 1986 as the handle was suffix E by the end of production, and there may be variants of the lock too, so it maybe fitting a new or used late 'late' handle to an early 'late' van say from 1985 there is a slight difference so maybe the square holed washer isn't needed in all cases, but I've found a number of the washers in the bottom of doors (bought used or stripped for parts) or on the floor after door lock has been worked on; with used ones all you know is it is late type but not always which year the van it came from was or exactly which handle/lock was fitted originally - the handles break and get replaced with used or new with increasing frequency they aren't the strongest thing in the world,
And when was the last time you took the handle out and found the foam seal present and intact ? I haven't seen one for many years, the first van (1986my) I broke for parts in 2004 still had it but it was turning to dust and broke up when removed