well labor day weekend we took the conversion van on its first offical road trip went a lot better than expected only had 2 things go wrong neither of which left us stranded.

On there right side of the van you have the 2 doors in the center into the passanger area the top latch on the door does not want to unlatch via the door handle. is there a trick to getting this latch to unlatch another way. the door pannel is blocking access and I prefer to not remove it since parts of it are not accessible for an easy removale and I realy dont want to mess up one of these custom pannels..

any advice is greatly appreciated.

Ps.. thanks to the help of many on this forum my wife and I have sold our ranger and the van is now our every day driver... Who needs gas millage when you don't have a car payment

 

Does the door open from the outside ? Maybe the cable is binding on something or disconnected ...either way you need to remove the panel to see whats going on .. unless the top latch is stuck ..then you need to put some WD or similar stuff and use a screwdriver or similar tool to move the latch .....The panel should just pop off after you remove the inner handle

 

Yes it was a cable, the retainer on the end of the cable was brittle and cracked so the cable sheath was sliding with the cable instead of staying put and the cable acually pulling

did a temp fix till I can get new cables but the door does once again open and close with the handle. thank you.

 

The broken cable ends are a very common failure. The side and rear doors on 3 of my vans didn't work because of this issue. You will have to remove the door panels to properly fix it, and ford charges several hundred dollars for the parts. I just machined some new sleeves from delrin, but many people wont have this option.

 

The cables are replaceable separately---do check your latches though as they might be wearing and not closing properly. Basically once the smaller door is closed and latch it should not move in and out at all, no "slop" so to speak. The upper and lower strikes can be adjusted a bit but sometimes the latch jaws have worn enough to cause this problem.

I'm about to replace these latches on my van and have checked prices; parts for the latches themselves would run you about $150 from Ford, Tousley Ford being one of FTE's sponsors has good OEM prices. (Link: Tousley Ford Parts Depot) Salvage yards are also good but might be buying the same worn out parts.

Here's an image with part numbers for the cables:

That particular page covers from 1992 to at least 2004, the publishing date for that crash book page.

HTH

 

wow thanks for all the information. axnd yes machining parts is not a luxaruy I have

However I acquired a doner E150 only problem is it is a 2002 and I only have it till Tuesday then it is off to the scrap yard. so some parts claim not to work. I am hoping the door hardware is interchangable gonna take the ones from the back door as well if they are.

if anyone knows for sure please let me know also what other parts and odds and ends might I want to grab while at it? the only condition on the deal was I have to leave the brakes engine and tranny intact so it can be babied to the scrap yard..

 

It should be identical as far as hardware / mechanical linkages & cables etc... Yours probably has power stuff and fancy interior which you will need to remove
I would grab the 3rd tail light assembly on the roof and the rubber door seals ..Heater switches tend to fry too along with the blower Motor

 

Blageurt has this right plus I'd remove everything I could; bolted, snapped, clipped or otherwise easily removed! All door parts are the same. Keep any screws, bolts or other fasteners too--never know when those come in handy.

Much of the dash won't be the same but even so grab the headlight switch--cut it loose with harness connector intact, give yourself at least 8-10" of lead. If you'd feel safe removing the fixed glass in the side and rear doors take that too including fasteners and the plastic spacer ring mounting between the glass and door shell.

Blower motor and its resistor bridge---they might be compatible.

That's all I can think of---for now anyway!