[Stinkycheezmonky]

The inside door handle on my '04 ZX3 has been kind of wonky on me. After driving up to whatever speed and having the doors auto-lock, when I park and pull the handle to unlock/open the door sometimes it just...won't open. If I try it enough times sometimes it will, sometimes it won't. The following has so far always worked though:

-Hit the unlock button on the key fob before touching the door handle.
-When not working, roll the window down. Most of the time this makes the inside handle work. The other times I can just reach out and open the door from the outside.

Additionally, I heard something rattling around in the door when I'd open or close it. Today I took off the door panel and started poking around. I couldn't see anything out of place immediately with the cable, so I just started reaching around in the bottom of the door to see what was loose. I found these:

Having never taken this stuff apart and not seeing more in there without ripping apart the foam sound deadening, can anyone point me in the right direction of where this widgets go?

 

[Stinkycheezmonky]

So evidently those are parts of the window regulator. The white plastic bit is broken, so the other part of it must still be attached to the regulator. Unfortunately, the dealer doesn't sell just that clip, you have to buy a complete new regulator. I found some "repair kits" on Amazon and eBay, so we'll see if those work.

 

[amc49]

If window works that is evidence someone has changed a regulator, those are parts that actually tie the window to the rest of the regulator. Someone just left them inside door.

The grey plastic piece was bigger and snapped onto the metal part at the tab and the metal part is the actual glass clamp for one end of the glass. It suspends from the cable.

 

[Stinkycheezmonky]

Before I go digging into this too deeply, I figured the plastic broke on the existing regulator (the window does work), and it just somehow isn't broken enough to screw up the window functionality. Is that possible? I haven't had time to take things apart again to actually see what I'm dealing with yet.

 

[amc49]

It can be possible but once cracked they break up to fail completely pretty quick.

Test? Roll window to half way up and then grab glass by hand and see if it moves up or down like loose. Any movement at all like 1/4" means you are right on the edge of losing the whole thing. Either zero slack in window cable or it's broken. Anything more than zero slack allows cable to derail and it then winds up in a knot.

 

[Stinkycheezmonky]

Thanks, I'll check that today.

 

[Stinkycheezmonky]

Sure enough, tons of up-and-down free movement when pulling on the glass. Like, a solid 2"+. I'll be pulling it all apart tomorrow it looks like :-/

 

[amc49]

Lucky it hasn't derailed yet.

Look at the inside handle cable when door panel is off. The white plastic at the upper end of handle cable where it snaps into back of door handle commonly breaks at the housing to then not completely unlatch door using inside handle sometimes. New cable time if broken although I have made up a custom sleeve attachment for like $4 that will fix cable. Mine been fixed and using for several years now. I use the same type fix to repair cruise control cable where it commonly breaks at the throttle body bracket too.