Door handle remove/install

[Mastiff]

I mostly just need to vent, but is there any trick to re-attaching the rod from the outside door handle to the mechanism in the door? Getting it out was one thing, kind of a pain, but I got a little screwdriver in there and pried it apart. Now I need to put it back and I've pretty much used up all the cuss words I have, and in every different order. The rod is determined to be rotated the wrong way, the little clip keeps falling off, I can't see anything while my hand is in there, I can only fit one hand at a time in there when I kind of would prefer to have 2 or 3.... I don't know why they though it was a good idea to design this stuff with almost no access and stuff is on the ragged edge of impossible.

Anyway, needed to vent. If anyone knows any tricks, I could use 'em.

 

[Carcinogen]

Unbolt the latch from the door then assemble and bolt back up?

 

[Blue85]

Yeah, can you connect the rod to the handle before the handle is installed and then deal with the other end of the rod?

 

[Mastiff]

I've tried with the latch connected or disconnected. You can get a little wiggle room with the latch removed, but then it is also trying to fall down all the time.

I'm pretty sure the rod cannot be connected/disconnected from the handle when the other end is hooked up. I found numerous posts online with people asking how to disconnect it and the answer is always to do it from inside the door. The whole thing would be cake if that were possible.

One suggestion I saw someplace is to not try to insert the rod into the latch and then slide up the clip. Instead, put the clip in place and force/snap the rod through. Unless you've dealt with this before you probably have no idea what I'm talking about. I might give it a shot if all else fails.

 

[Taylormade]

I went through this frustration. But I found a trick that worked well for me. I super glued that clip to my finger. It enabled me to get in there and not drop it every 5 seconds.

 

[Mastiff]

Well, I finally got it. Tightened the clip on there and eventually got lucky popping it into the hole without knocking the clip off. I did realize that it is possible for me to get two hands in there at once to help with the brail action. What a terrible design from a maintenance perspective. If they could have made the rod removable from the handle side, it all would have been a piece of cake... The door works better than ever now though, since I swapped in a new latch mechanism which I cleaned to a sanitary state and relubed before install.

 

[Carcinogen]

Sweet! I have a door all torn down for paint right now, I'll have to remember this.