Bodywork and Glass Sliding Door and Parts

Sliding Door Handle Seal

Cruz: Early style handle seals are obsolete. They were more like a spacer that sat on the skin rather than a seal.

I got one from a breaker and fitted a bit rubber o-ring too to make a more waterproof seal. Sadly late seals are too big for the hole on early doors

- Early seal part number 251843711 (deleted part)

Late style handle seals are still available from VW and JK. They are like a plasic grommet that seals to the door skin then acts as a spacer between the skin and the handle

- Late seal part number 251843711A

Sliding Door Catch lock Mechanism

Thanks to Pionte for this howto

I have written this to help others who may find the sliding door opening when driving/not wanting to close properly when trying to shut problem.

• I started by removing the door card, this is to allow access to the connecting wire from the handle to the catch.
• Then after opening the door I undid and removed the large philips head screws that hold the catch mechanism in place and removed the catch.
• noticed that the whole assembly was deformed as you can see from the pic below that it is no longer square, I guess what must of happened is that either by time, wear & tear or more likely an incorrectly positioned striker bolt has resulted in it becoming bent so; CAREFULLY I re-shaped with a hammer but it can also be done in a vice

• The below image shows the straightened lock mech

• The next thing I noticed was that the latch mechanism itself was bent so I reformed this with a pair of pipe grips

• Then I tapped this bit down ( on the tip of the screw driver ). This bit holds the latch and stops it moving from side to side. Don't hit it too hard or it won't move at all!

• After doing the above steps I put it all back together, adjusted the striker bolt position and voila! The door shuts with a gentle push, perfect shut lines and NO popping open.

Additional note

If you can't spot any wear or damage take a careful look at the hooks shown arrowed.

You only need a small amount of wear on those for the door to pop open. They can be reshaped with a file and will work fine again.

Added to wiki by Dugcati 21:12, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Other Issues with rear catch

Covkid:

A very common issue in colder months is not being able to close sliding door - ie it won't engage and hold at the back whereas is Summer it seems fine. Take a look at the hook piece on last photo above. If this does not engage quickly enough onto the pin on door frame opening, it will simply pop out. You can verify if this is a problem if you manually (with door open) try to push this hook out of the away (ie push up in photo). If it seems stiff or returns slowly, it needs lubrication. A shot of spray grease usually sorts it but you need enough in there to soak into it. Once it pops out easily, you should find door shuts easily - cold or not.

Noting the above pictorial, I would highly recommend you grease all moving parts in the catch before reinstalling.