During the last six months or so, I have had the plastic rings on the door latches crumble on my 93 Explorer. I'm talking about where the hook on the doors as well as the tailgate lock into their closed position. The plastic cylinders have crumbled leaving the small steel posts at about half of their original diameter. Needless to say the tailgate now has quite a rattle.

Anyone experience a similar problem? How did you fix it?

Many thanks.

 

just age I would gather rap some black tape around the post maybe to quite things down

 

Black tape? Maybe duct tape eh?

Ok maybe a good cheap McGyver fix - and trust me I have my share of those from time to time - but not the right longe term OEM fix.

My rear lift on my 93 is doing this. I took off the plastic bushing this past weekend and measured it - .50" ID and .675" OD about 1 inch long. I need to go to Autozone and see what they have but there are a ton of these available in different sizes from the Help brand of products in the little red packaging.

Now I was also at NAPA this past weekend getting a new radiator fan because the old one was cracked in about 8 places and ready to granade itself. And they also had these striker assemblies. I got a new one for my drivers door. Bolt, plastic bushing and that funny black hook thingy for $6.

When you get the right parts and replace this stuff, make sure you align the round base washers to the circle left on the body from the dirt. Don't clean off the dirt. You need this to realign the center of the bolt because there is about 1/2 inch adjustment all the way around.

Last thing too you might want to look at is the front door, rear too but fronts ususally get more wear, hinge assemblies. Typically driver's wears out. Autozone has a hinge kit for $8 or so - 2 new pins and 4 bronze bushings. I did this a few months ago and the drivers door now shuts like a precise hand crafted box, I guess - feels pretty nice. Of course you need to mark the hinges because they have adjustment too. Be careful with the door too. It weighs a ton. I chose to take the hinge off the door side and leave the body side alone. this meant a 80 pound door wanting to hand by the elecrical wires (speaker, door/window controls...). So I positioned some plastic buckets and 2x4 spacers to hold the door from crashing to the ground.
More details on this web site.
http://draco.acs.uci.edu/explorer/

 

Like Jharger said, get the right parts. You can get those bushings at any auto parts store. Look in the HELP Parts section. They come in a pack that usually has a variety of at least 2 different lengths of bushings. I can't remember exactly which torx socket fits the Nader bolt, seems like it is a T-25 or T-30. When you take the post out and put it back in, be careful not to knock the nut out of place, as it can fall inside and be a real pain to get too.

 

Hey Jerry - where you been?

I did not have an issue with the nut inside the body panel. But as I loosened the first one I was paranoid that it would fall into the abyss once I got the bolt out. Seems like Ford has somehow encapsulated them but left them loose to allow for adjustment. I suppose if you have had some body damage from an accident, you might lose one...

 

Yeah, the first one I changed stayed right in place, so I thought that they were either tacked or otherwise stuck in place. The second one I changed demonstrated to me just how incorrect that assumption was (boy that sucked). When you get to look at the back side, they are allowed to move but not turn (so you can tighted or loosen them) but they can also fall back and out. On some vehicles they can be accessed by removing some panelling. It others, you have to cut a hole in the metal. On the Ex's I can't remember which, but it probably depends on the year and which door.

 

I went by Autozone today and they have both the plastic bushings and the entire steel posts/bushing assemblies for the rear lift gate. Help brand in red package. Bushings were $4 for both sides and the assemblies were $9 for one.

But when I reassembled everything, right in the original spot, it didn't shut too good. I remember after one 4WD trip, the door immediately felt different - didn't shut right. So I'm sure I tweaked the body enough to throw off the door alignment.

So I kept readjusting the right post until is closed fairly freely and didn't stick on opening. But then I alos noticed the 2 latch assemblies themselves do not actuate very nice - coated in dirt. So I'll have to take those apart and clean with some degreaser. I think root cause of bushing failure is 1) misalignment of the pins to the door latches and 2) hard to actuate latches causing premature wear on the bushings.

Good Luck!

 

Thanks for the good advice. I picked up a 4 pack of the bushings at Autozone. The two longer bushings worked very well on the liftgate, but the two shorter ones left the front doors too hard to close after many adjustments. So I'll pick up another 4 pack and use the longer bushings on the doors. BTW, the bolts all stayed in place but I was a bit worried.

Thanks again to all of you. Merry Christmas!!!

 

Well I did not do a good job apparently. The tailgate closes easily and is tight. I got another package of bushings from Autozone and used the larger ones on the front doors. But they don't close very tightly even after many adjustments to the bushing location. Can hear road noise, and even got a bit of splash going thru the carwash yesterday.

What is the procedure to better align the door latch with the bushing holder given that the bushing unit has lateral and horizontal leeway ( a little )?


Thanks for your time.

 

Bill - you might have another issue. The door hinge busshings wear out too and that side of the door might be causing you a fit problem. Can you grab the door and move it up and down without the car moving? If so, you need to go back to Autozone a get a door hinge kit. It has 4 bushings and 2 pins - enough for both hinges. there's a description here. http://draco.acs.uci.edu/explorer/

I did the hinges first and the striker bushing later. Once the door swings nice, the new striker will grab it closed nicely. When I did the striker bush, I scribed a circle around the base so I knew where to put it back again.

 

Jharger, Thanks for your many and helpful responses.

I tested the door hinges and all is OK there. Then I took a closer look at the bushing on the one door where I did not replace the bushing. That older bushing is not as fat (OD) as the new ones I installed on the other three doors. So I am concluding that .075 (I did measure one) is not what I need. I will go to the Ford dealer Tuesday and check the size of their part. I would be willing to bet that what I need is .045ID and .065OD.

Will let you know.

Bill

 

huh - I did get the right OD size from Autozone as you measured. Maybe I got a different kit. Let us know what the dealer says. I wonder what they offer - bushings or some kind of bushing/pin kit. Now that I think of it, I got the front door bush as a kit with the pin and that funky U shaped metal braket fro Napa auto parts. maybe try Napa for the front doors.

 

Jharger,

Well I finally got everything working right. Turns out that the bushings in the bushing only kit are a different size from the bushings in the stricker bolt kit. The bushing only kit has OD of .75inch whereas the whole stricker kit is .65 inch. Big difference.

Wound up buying three bolt kits at O'Riellys for $6.79 each after getting a price from the Ford dealer for $21.30 each. Can you believe that?

Anyway, all the doors close tightly and the lady is happy. Could be my lucky night!!

 

I know Ford is absolutely rediculous. How on Earth do they think they are competitive on parts? They only business strategy they can be employing is to screw the unsuspecting that do not realize there are other sources for parts. But WTF - this is America right?