'99 Safari Dutch Door Passenger Side Stuck Shut

[Longhair]

Help! My passenger side dutch door is stuck shut. The handle isn't broken, and the linkage is operating, but the latch itself doesn't trip to open it. Is there any way that I can trip it that I'm not seeing?

[Longhair]

Now I just feel stupid. I got to thinking, and the problem just started with the sudden severe cold snap we just got (low teens overnight, highs in the low 20s), so I got to wondering if the cold may have stiffened the white lithium lube enough to cause the issue. I had taken the inside panel off to access the latch mechanism, so I broke out the heat gun. After a few minutes of putting heat on it I hit the lock/unlock switch a half dozen times and tried the handle again. BINGO! It popped right open.

It's getting dark now so I'm not going to mess with it anymore until tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll get after it with some cleaner degreaser and lube it up with something that won't get stiff in the cold.
Whew!! I was afraid that it was going to get a lot more involved, and I really didn't want to spend hours in the cold tearing things apart and putting them back together again.

[MountainManJoe]

The same thing happened to me before when I went skiing. When it gets very cold (and maybe the weatherstrip is a little damp) , the door freezes shut. On top of that, the cold makes the thin metal handle very brittle. In my case, it broke in my hand, so be careful.

[Longhair]

The same thing happened to me before when I went skiing. When it gets very cold (and maybe the weatherstrip is a little damp) , the door freezes shut. On top of that, the cold makes the thin metal handle very brittle. In my case, it broke in my hand, so be careful.

I've had three Safaris and one Astro already, so this isn't my first rodeo. I thought that I'd seen just about everything, but that was obviously not the case. At least now I'm one more step closer to that goal.

[MountainManJoe]

Now I rub silicone grease (in the form of dielectric grease, or brake caliper lube) into all my door weather strips in the winter. It helps a great deal with sticking doors. It also keeps the rubber supple and prevents it from drying out.