Afternoon guys, I mentioned earlier in the week that I was going to look at repairing my door handles using VW parts and that I would pass on my experiences in doing so in a hope that it's of future use for others.
Now you can still buy replacement door handles from OPC which is great if you have the later cars, if you have 'Porsche' scripted handles as found on the '86' year models and want to keep the 'script' you have no option but to try and repair your handles as Porsche no longer supply such handles. You may find some second hand but these command a premium price much higher than a new set of plain handles from OPC. The problem here though, is, even if you are prepared to pay the, at times. extortionate price, is that the handle will now be at least 32 years old and if it hasn't already failed may do so very soon and you can't buy new triggers alone from OPC. IMHO this is a big shortcoming of Porsche as it's not a difficult task to change the triggers, there are after market repair kits which include the trigger, leave well alone, they are'nt worth the money being cast in a very inferior alloy which will first bend and then break very quickly after fitting them.
So I began to look at my options having already been down the after market route which failed soon after.
Options where;
1: Buy another kit from the US and hope this one lasts longer
2: Buy a new handle from Porsche, strip it down and fit it's trigger to the 'scripted' original
3: Investigate forum talk about VW parts that may fit.
I should add at this point that as of next month's new MOT rules both front doors have to open from both inside and outside so there's no alternative but to fix the problem or the car will get a major fault and fail it's next MOT due in June.
I was kindly given a link on this forum to Heritage parts (sorry I don't have the name of who to hand) and on looking on what they had to offer I decided to buy a pair of Mk2 golf handles minus lock barrels as these had been noted as the ones required on a number of forums. I ordered handles for both doors at a cost including P&P of £20.34. When you compare that with one Porsche handle at IIRC £130 plus VAT and P&P you can understand why I went the VW route.
The handles arrived after a few days and I got to work, now I must note that the Heritage handles seem different to the original VW parts, I say this as the triggers look different to what I have seen on VW forums and to work within the Porsche handle need modifying. Perhaps they have been modified for extra strength (VW owners have handle issues just as we Porsche owners do) or just for ease of production in pattern parts. I have read that VW original parts are a direct fit, perhaps they are and maybe others may wish to go down that route for ease of conversion, since I had the handles i decided to adapt the triggers to fit and will try to show what I did in pictures from this point on.
First up is a photo of both driver's door handles, the bottom handle is Porsche. You will note that the trigger is missing from the Porsche handle, also if you look carefully you should be able to see the differences between the two types. I am talking internals here, not the obvious differences in the handle itself. The important thing is that the triggers are of the same size, the distance from pivot point to the tab that operates the linkage to the door lock is spot on so in as far as the critical dimensions are concerned we are looking good.
What is an issue is that the Porsche trigger is angled down along it's top edge as seen in the picture, the VW is flat and a lot bulkier which won't work as seen as it will foul against the lock barrel and it's central locking box when trying to open. As i mentioned earlier this doesn't seem to be the case on the original VW trigger, i can't say for sure as i haven't seen one close up but going from the photo's that i have seen the original VW trigger looks much closer to Porsche. Others may prefer to buy an original VW handle because of this, it would certainly make life much simpler although I can't say for sure if it's as simple as a straight swap not having done it myself.
Moving on I'll now go into stripping down the Porsche handle, first up is to remove the lock barrel, this is simply done by removing the small screw in the back and the cam and plate with spring that operates the lock using the key.
Next up is the barrel housing with it's central locking unit as seen here with the white wire, you have to remove this to get the trigger out. If you look closely you'll see a pin that I have rested on the housing, the small hole below is where this pin came from, the pin needs to be drifted out from one side, once out the entire lock housing will slide out of the back of the handle.
here's the VW handle with trigger removed..
Next we have the VW trigger sitting in the Porsche handle, you can just see in the background the removed broken Porsche trigger, you can also see how much more metal is on the VW (heritage) trigger, I believe that the original VW trigger may be much closer to the Porsche part. The trigger is sitting in it's correct position, most importantly the tab on it's back edge fits perfectly into the linkage for the door lock.
Here we see what i was planning to remove metal wise on the mill, i then changed my mind as not everyone has a mill set up at home so used what is more accessible and that being a Dremel drill with small sanding wheel, I guess you could do this with a suitably sized round hand file although I wouldn't fancy it myself as my fingers aren't as strong as they once were, the point is though that it is possible to do it by hand if you so choose. One very important thing to note in this picture, you'll see a small dot marked in pencil, this needs to be drilled to allow access for re-fitting of the lock housing retaining pin, please note this hole needs to be in both sides or you'll never get the pin out again...
so here's the modified VW trigger with the broken Porsche trigger for comparison, now the Porsche looks much stronger in this view but where it has snapped and this is the second trigger that has snapped on me it's not joined between the two pivot points, IE the two sides are separate, the VW trigger however is joined at this point and much more solid, whether it's as strong remains to be seen. There's not a lot of force on these parts is the mech is kept clean and adjusted properly, that will be my next task when putting the handle back on the car, this thread is to show what I did to address the problem and hopefully helps others when they need to address the same issue.
I made one other change and that was to fit a tapered pin rather than a new rivet for the trigger pivot, this was tapped in place with a small spot of loctite to hold and then cut to length. Note that when reassembling be sure to have the spring in it's correct position and be sure that the tab at the rear is sitting in the link control properly. I got it right this time around but when I did this before fitting the bad trigger form the US i had forgotten the tab abd had to take it apart again...lol
Final picture to show the handle all back together as Porsche intended, hopefully i get the handle back on the car tonight or tomorrow, I need my son's help as the poor joints of my fingers don't help in these fiddly type jobs...
Hope this is of use to some of you guys, it's not difficult, just a little fiddly at times, I had no issues doing the conversion, I did however have issues getting the handle off, hence why I'm leaving it to my son it get it back on...
Cheers
Pete
