Installing drivers exterior door handle

[astrozam]

Recently I read that one of our members 96astro ( aka ChrisMike ) was parting out his van the "Ohana Hauler" because it had been involved in an accident,I wondered if maybe Mike would be willing to take the door handles off and ship them up (knowing how much of a pain they are to remove ) I fully expected he'd tell me to take a flyin leap,LOL happily I was wrong.
Mike not only agreed to take them off, but he had them in the mail 2 days later and all he asked was to cover shipping (less than $6 bones) and to buy him a beer next time our paths crossed,hows that for good O'le southern AstroSafarian generousity Much appreciated Mike,a little part of the Ohana Hauler will continue to live on.

O.k, now on to the install, hopefully the explanations on the pics will be visible...













If your really lucky,and I mean REALLY LUCKY,you will manage to get that top nut to thread relatively quickly ( quickly as in a half an hour quickly ) if not you will probably want to do this to the Engineers at GM

[Astrophysics]

Excellent write up on door mechanism.

I just change the handle on a 99 Yukon drivers door this weekend.

the Yukon was a bit easier bigger door and horizontal handle allows better bolt location.

One really neat tool that I found at Sears is a new type of 1/4 and 3/8 drive extentions for your sockets.

these are really neat since the male end of the extension has a pseudo ball swivel at the end so that you get like a mini universal joint effect on the socket to reach into tight spots.

the set has 3 different length extensions.

also the old trick is to stuff some masking tape inside the socket or box wrench to hold the hex head from dropping off inside the door panel til you get a couple threads started.

to pop the clips on the door panel I used a paint scrapper and a nail puller.

Astrophysics.

[astrozam]

Glad to see it wasn't a total waste of my time documenting this, thanks Astrophysics, I did try the tape but it just wouldn't hold the nut in the wrench,had to go with jammin my fingers in and a little B.S luck