Julie,
FYI Ford issued a TSB to the original manual encouraging you to purchase a variety of rubber mallets so you can "fine tune" your adjustments.

 

The doors were so far off in the cab I used for my F-2 I had to use a hydraulic jack to push the upper right and lower left corner to make the door square. The cab was from a firetruck with 3000 miles and was in perfect condition otherwise.

 

Well! I guess we should add the hydraulic ram to the assortment of rubber mallets.

 

Hey Bob. I understand why you would not take pictures of the fix you did but it is never too late. Why don't you take you door apart, remove the cover and take a picture of the modification you made. I can assure you I would be eternally grateful!

 

Well, I've been abscent from this post for awhile. Just to catch up: You don't have to remove the glass from the window track to get the door lock mechanism out. You will probably have to jimmy it around a little though and maybe role the window down a little or up a little to get it past it.

But be careful, it's one of those funny parts that if you don't touch it it will fall out into the bottom of the door by itself, but you'll be swearing to figure out how it did it when you can't get it out by itself or back in. Actually they aren't to difficult.

I checked my new handles and there is no spring or any type of mechanism in the handle itself. The handle with the shaft will turn 360 deg in the mounting base and stay put where ever you leave it

I decided to donate my extra lock to the cause and disect it (because I don't remember what's in there either). And this is the bottom line: If your handles are sagging it's because either 1) your square hole in the handle hole is rounding out; 2) the square shaft on the handle is rounding out; the spring holding ht ebolt taught has broken or is weak; and/or, 4) the metal tab on the bolt actuator is bent or worn!!!

"Bolt actuator? What up with that Julie?" Ok here's the pictures:



Here's the lock with the cover on. You won't need to heat the tabs on the back - there are only two. Be sure to clamp that coiled spring...that sucker is super tense.

Carefully get a screw driver and hammer and get under the tabs just enough to get a pair of "dikes" under each one. You may have to lightly pry up on the cover then pull it back out from the bolt face - you'll understand when you see it.



This is what you see when you pull off the cover. The top piece is the door lock cam. It is pushed up by the keyed lock below or by flipping the inside door handle counterclockwise. Note that the square hole in it is somewhat over sized.



When you lift off the locking cam this is what you see. This piece with the square hole is what actuates the bolt. You can see that the bolt is held rigid by the spring. When the handle is turned, the tab on the top of this "bolt actuator" pushes the bolt back against the spring pressure.

So, the only place you can have play in that linkage is on the handle shaft; in the handle shaft hole; there is not enough spring pressure to hold the bolt in place; OR that tab on the top of the actuator is worn (quite a bit) or bent out of place.

This lock set functions perfectly so the positions of the parts you see here is what you want. I would imagine that Bobs fix was to build up the tab.

Be very gentle with the tabs when you take this apart AND when you put it back together. I had no problems with them.


J!

 

Julie, I think some of the metal surfaces are worn since the spring appears to be very strong. I will not really know what I need to do until I get it apart.
I will let you know if I need pictures and thanks for the offer.

 

Hi Wood!

I edited them in while you were writing!

J!

 

It is Christmas in October!!!!! Thanks a million and I will let you know how it turns out.

W

 

Just on update. I just reassembled my '50 F-1 doors and wanted to report on correcting the sag in my outside door handles. See Julie's post #20 in this thread that shows pictures of what the internal components should look like on proper functioning handles.

I took my latch mechanisms apart and, as Bob mentioned, noticed quite a bit of wear on the bearing surfaces of the components. I MIG welded the worn surfaces so they mirrored Julies photo and reassembled the mechanisms. You would not believe the difference. The handles and mechanisms now function like a brand new vehicle.

Thanks Julie and Bob. You made me one happy camper. I will post photos of the finished product in my gallery soon.

 

Good to hear you were successful. It's a fairly easy fix if you have MIG welder.

 

This was a great thread. The pics from Julie really helped me make some sense of whats going on with my handles. I need to save this thread for spring when the serious work on my truck begins!

 

Would Viagra or Cialis work for your "sagging" problem? just my two cents. hahah

 

Normally it would but my "door handle" is so long those remedies would be wasted.

 

Hmmm..... Doesn't do a thing for what I got sagging!

Julie!

 

If you go up to the top bar and right click on the thread title, then when the menu pops up, click on "Properties," the URL for the thread is in the center of the page. Highlight it and copy it, then paste it in a word document you have saved for links. Type the title under the pasted URL and all you have to do is double click on the URL on your word document and it will bring you right here!

J!