I bought a new door striker and screwed the old one out and the new one on, closed the door and now it wont open, I moved the striker bolt outwards from the previous position and now the latch wont release. Any ideas on how to get the door open? I would have to pull the seat to get the door panel off or roll the window down and use a coat hanger to try and get the latch to release. Any ideas would be welcome!

 

First what exactly are you working on?

 

... that hurts!



Hopefully someone has experienced the same and will chime in soon.

 

I see the confusion as my Avatar showed my 2002 F150, It's a 1978 Ford F150 4x4 shortbed however the door latching system was the same in the 1973 to 1979 F series trucks.

 

are you 100% it's unlocked? I know, I'm sure you already tried it, but try locking/unlocking it a couple times. If that does nothing, Try pushing in on the door as you try to unlatch it. Maybe it's just caught in between clicks and just needs a push.

 

Ok so this is just a thought, I think you can get the door panel off without taking the seat out, puting the window down will make it harder to get at the latck rods, and maybe you overcentered the latch assy. and it is stuck. I would try to pull out while lifting the outside handle up first. No sucess, then try to take the inner door panel off and then pull or push the lock rod and push out, if it comes open, find the old witness marks and put the latch there and adjust as necessary. Hope that help's.

 

My friend had a similar problem after adjusting his drivers door. He adjusted it too tight and it binded the latch. We sprayed a bunch of WD40 in from the outside as lube and then both of us pushed on the door from the outside while pulling up on the door handle and it released. You can always do like Bo and luke Duke and jump in through the window.

 

Try lifting up on the door handle and grabbing the door at the bottom where you can squeeze your finger tips in. Lift up on the door while trying to open it and see if that helps.

Have you tried to open it from the inside of the cab?

Good luck.

 

D2AZ-6522008-A (replaced D1AZ-6522008-A) .. Striker Plate / Available from Ford and "help section" of autoparts stores / 1973/79 F100/880 / 1978/79 Bronco / Myriad 1971/96 FoMoCo Passenger Cars.

Junkyard passenger cars: Take 'em off the rear doors, far less usage.

 

That happened to me twice on my 78 Dodge, both times something had gotten jammed between the bottom of the door and the cab and I had to push the door like I was closing it while trying to open it like some tailgates seem to want you to do before they open. It wasn't easy to do either as it was jammed pretty tight

 

Well after much cussing and trying everything above I called a Guy I know that deals in 73 to 79 fords, he said come on over, he replaced the inner door handle I had managed to break off and I sat inside the truck pulling on the door handle and he rocked the truck door in and out and the door popped open, turns out it was the new striker I installed, the plastic bushing was bigger than the original and the latching mechanism was jammed onto it causing the door to be stuck closed, I just put the old striker bolt back in and now it works like new! I bought the new strikers from an auto supply store from the help section. Be warned! They are made by Dorman, Part # 38421 (Made in China) and the roller bushings are to big and will jamb your door and cause severe headaches and swear words bad enough to make your wife run for the house!

Thanks for everyones advice!

 

Glad you got it open.

 

Thank you for contributing to these forums everyone. I know whenever I get stuck that a reasonable answer is never far away. Here's my first post.

I bought the Dorman HELP! Door Striker kit 38448 for my '94 Ford F250 and experienced the same problem of the latch getting stuck closed. Fortunately with some relatively minor (no broken door handle) effort I closed the door enough to be able to open it again.

The bushings are indeed too big. I machined them down incrementally until I found a nice balance of tight and "will still open" For my truck at least I had to take .010 to .015 off of the bushing. The final diameter that worked well was .675".

I got lucky this time as I was still able to open the door. I would recommend to anyone doing this repair that you measure/machine the bushing down to no larger than .680" before installing on the truck.

 

I bought the Dorman HELP! Striker kit 38421 for my 75 and they worked perfectly.