Found a new victim at the local Self Serve junkyard. This '96 Econoline had good rear door latches/cables/license frame, so I tried to salvage them. Was curious about sloppy orange spray painting on the motor, turns out this was a CARS Clunker that had had the 'Motor Grenade' used on it.

My '92 Chateau had finally succumbed to the dreaded door latch cable syndrome so I got my baptism today. IMO the designer of these plastic End Stop latch cables deserves to be tarred, feathered & run out of town. I hadn't appreciated just how pernicious the design was. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it appears that these miserable cables were made permanently attached to the latches, neccessitating replacing the entire assembly, solely b/c of the dinky POS plastic End Stops? The cables disconnect from the door handle, but I had to remove the latches on the left rear door & pull the cables thru. I saw no way to disengage the cables from the latches w/o destroying them, although I thought others talked about replacing just cables?

For those unfamiliar w/this Econoline design, the door latches are opened remotely via cables similar to those on bicycles. Unfortunately, unlike traditional bicycle cables, that had sturdy/reliable metal End Stops to retain & anchor the cable's sheath, FORD choose to use inferior plastic. This plastic apparently breaks down quite readily & breaks apart, releasing the sheath & preventing you from opening the door. The plastic itself crumbles, lacking any strength & was so fragile the End Stops disintegrated in my hands while I carefully tried to dismantle them!

Can we revisit this phenomena? If I didn't know better I'd swear the plastic is an example of Designed Obsolescence.

 

I have a 91 e250 with 330,000 miles and all the latches still work fine "old fashioned levers" I also have a 93 e150 with 140,000 miles and the rear door lock, side door and passenger door all share the same cable problems. Wouldn't it be cool if the original engineers read these threads?

 

Not sure if it would be cool or not. Sure isn't going to stop all the miserable plastic End Stops from crumbling. I blame designers, you blame engineers-but who was really to blame for these notoriously weak links?

Obviously having adhered to proven designs would've prevent the plague of failures either way. The old steel rod links worked fine, but did get weakened thru use of plastic end clips, AND using bicycle cable designs would of been just fine, except for the substitution of the accursed plastic End Stops. Blame it on the chemists, another plastic might've held up just fine? Perhaps the bean counters, who saved a few pennies by eliminating metal End Stops & substituting plastic? Somebody somewhere, at some point, came up w/the idea & it passed muster. Wonder how soon failures began to show up?

IMO what would really be cool is if somebody could come up w/a quick, cheap & easy solution to effect the repair.

 

> IMO what would really be cool is if somebody could come up w/a quick, cheap & easy solution to effect the repair.

Send one to me and I will try.

 

My wife's old '98 Sable had a cable control on the secondary intake manifold ports; when it broke (man did the car get slow), the dealer wanted $350 for the control box which included the cable as a unit... I'm a bicyclist, have lots of cables and housings around. I bought a cable with one correctly shaped end, crimped and soldered the second cable end, and the cost to me was something under $5.

I haven't seen the van door cables and mine ain't broke, but I have to believe that you could fabricate new housings and/or metal ends on the existing housings...

George

 

I'd suggest that you look at these FORD door latch cables before assuming they're the same as your wife's Sable. Perhaps you'd be able to answer the Q: "I saw no way to disengage the cables from the latches w/o destroying them, although I thought others talked about replacing just cables?" The latches appear to be assembled permanently w/cable attached & the cables are assembled w/the sheath End Stops permanently installed. Not sure which part you refer to when you say housings.

Obviously I'd also like to believe there's a quick, easy, cheap way to accomplish this repair. Note that the cable, it's ends & the sheath are all in excellent condition, AND only the (deleted explicative) plastic End Stop bushings at the ends of the sheath crumble.

I'm thinking along the lines of making up 2 piece 'Split' End Stops that can be fit on over the sheaths w/o cutting anything or disconnecting the cable from the latch. The original End Stop serves as a bushing to center & block the larger hole on the latch, preventing the sheath from passing thru.

Another possibility may be a simple malleable C-clip (like a small washer w/slot & hole at center) that could be slipped over the cable, then bent closed so as to catch the sheath end, but leaving a hole for the cable to slide thru. This wouldn't center or guide the cable though, would need a stepped washer/bushing.

 

Job I did on wife's Sable had nothing to do with door cables.

Lots of bikes use cable stops on the frame or on brake levers that are basically a barrel that stops the cable sheath but not the cable, and they use a slot through which the internal cable passes. This allows you to pull the cable out in the middle of its run and lube it, etc. if you have some slack to work with.

This might work in this situation if you can pull the cable far enough to slip the stop over it. The 2-piece stop might have issues with coming apart at the wrong time. It would be better if I could see one of the cables, but I don't feel like pulling off door cards on my van until I feel that I'm going to have to fix something.

You might visit a good bike shop that builds and works on higher end bikes and take a look at their hardware drawers; they may have something that will work for you.

Good luck,
George

 

Sounds like its worth a try. Somehow if it was as easy as rifling thru a local bicycle shop's "hardware drawers" I'd have expected others to already chime in about such an easy solution. Will take a latch/cable assembly to town, we have several serious bike shops here. May also try scooter/moped shops which might have heavier cable hardware to find a size that fits.

 

I'm just now picking up where the last thread left off (October 6, 2009). My 1995 E150 has exactly the problems you described - and it's not the first time. Every time I've had to repair a door handle it was due to breakage of the cable's ends. I looked at bicycle parts as you suggested but they're all too lightweight. I'm a gadget guy so I've tried to match up a few things. I would interested to know if you've come up with anything that works.

 

Yup, tried "rifling thru a local bicycle shop's hardware drawers" w/o much luck, got close, but no cigar.

Yesterday, when I went to close my Club Wagon's sliding side door I discovered it wouldn't budge from it's hold open position. Sure enough, another of those accursed plastic cable end anchors had crumbled! This time it was the cable that went to the front bottom roller/catch. Couldn't get it to release w/o removing the cover, which was unneccessarily difficult. The rear Torx screw is positioned so I could only get 1 click at a time on a 1/4" drive ratchet & the damnable screw backed tightly into the plastic panel! It had me cursing what could've been a simple task & IS a simple task IF the door isn't fully open.

 

After spending way too many hours of my life dealing with these stupid cables that give out at the most importune time I finally hit on something today that has worked really well. I had a broken huffy mountain bike laying around and it has aluminum adjusting barrels that worked almost perfectly for this fix. I took one of the nuts to a bench grinder to shave it thinner and just cut the length out of the bolt that i needed and it's looking great. So here's the link where you can find them online for less than $2 each Pyramid Lever Adjusting Barrel O/S 10mm | BikepartsUSA
there is also several other types if you want something even heavier duty

 

Have you actually succeeded in modifying these accursed cable ends?

My search lead me to the Dia-Compe 92 step down, they fit the Ford cable sheath nicely:

CABLE FERRULE DIA-COMPE 92 STEP DOWN 10/PKG

Plan was to slot these ferrules so they could slip over the cable w/o cutting & use appropriate size washers welded to the door mechanism to accept the ferrule's smaller diameter & capture them.

This didn't work out. Tension on cables was such that the odd angles of pull twisted them. This ultimately caused them to bind in the slots, even bend the fat ends & made the 'runs' tighter than the sloppy plastic originals ends.

 

I just fixed my side doors with some cable barrel stops off a couple old motorcycles out back! Now for the back doors. took some fabrication work on the stops but it is seeming to work fine.

 

I'll be slightly contrary to trying to repair anything like these cables and latch assemblies---typically even my best efforts haven't been all that long-term successful.

Vehicles with high mileage tend to have a lot of wear on all the parts and age alone doesn't help matters much. My '00 E250 is a work truck and since I already have the semi-specialized tools to replace locks and outside handles this isn't a huge deal to me. Recently my right back door wasn't latching correctly and adjustments of the striker loop did nothing. Looking more carfully at the latch itself I could see it worn enough that it wouldn't catch properly. For about $67 I replaced the latch and all is well.

At the same time I checked the other cargo doors and found them okay for the time but they'll all need replaced soon anyway. With 235K miles and almost 11 years use I think they've held up well, all things considered. The older rods etc were great when working but still subject to the same repeat use wear and eventual hassle of replacement. Having worked on both types I think the cable driven versions are easier to replace overall and give trouble free service for a good enough time.

Its not easy just chucking something when we think it can be repaired and returned to service----just not been my experience with "cheap" things like these assemblies.

 

The problem w/failed latch cables has nothing to do w/wear, or a door not "latching correctly".

Typically the failure appears as an 'Every day the bucket goes to the well, One day the bottom drops out' phenomenon. Perfect latches, that are not "worn enough" to measure, fail to open when a miserably "cheap" plastic retainer crumbles, leaving a cable sheath totally unanchored & you can't open the door. On central lock Econolines there are 3 of these cables on the right rear door, any of 6 plastic retainers that can fail.

Inevitably all of the latch cables are destined to fail this way. IMO buying replacements for them all isn't "cheap" & installing them is a PITA.

A good restoration technique, that replaces the god awful plastic 'ends' w/metal ferrules, would be better & truly "cheap".