Some door-related issues (98 civic ex)

Maintenance/Repairs
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1

i’ll probably be selling my 98 civic ex with 150k-ish, and there are a couple minor door-related issues that i’d like to take care of (preferably myself) in order to get the car into proper selling condition:

  1. i bought it with 110k-ish on it, and the whole time i’ve owned the car, the power lock/window for the rear passenger door have not been working. the manual lock works fine, door handle is fine, etc., and the window is stuck completely closed so i haven’t bothered messing with it. i assumed that it was a power-related issue since neither worked, but after wandering around the internet for a while, it seems that the actuator is a really common problem on these cars. in any case, i’d like to get this properly diagnosed and fix it myself if that’s relatively easy to do.

  2. the rear driver’s door only opens from the inside. the outer door handle pulls up, but there’s no indication that it’s doing anything inside the door itself. the power window/lock work fine on this one.

any suggestions on diagnosing the problem on either one of these? and after we get to that point, feel free to walk me through the repair process. :slight_smile:

thanks!

2

  1. You can test the actuator, but it will require pulling the inner door panel off. First, just watch it while someone locks and unlocks the car. If it doesn’t move at all, then you know for sure it’s not a connecting rod of some sort. Then disconnect the power to it, and use a test light while your trusty friend locks/unlocks the door. It will flash if it’s getting power. If there’s no flash, you need to fix that first.

  2. Most likely, either the handle is actually broken, or the metal rod that connects it to the latch has become disconnected. The rod is held in place by a piece of plastic, and they can be broken rather easily by someone who gets excited trying to open a door. They clip into a round hole, then spin and clasp onto the rod. It’s kind of hard (for me) to explain, but once you see one, it’ll make perfect sense.

Good luck,
Chase

3

thanks!

it seems like getting the door panel off is a pretty easy DIY, yes (i’m pretty handy, but not a mechanic by any stretch)?

i’m also guessing that for #2, the panel needs to be taken off as well?

4

Yep. If you’re unsure how to do this, head to a scrapyard and practice on a “donor” vehicle. You can always get a second handle there relatively cheap, too (but we don’t know it’s the problem yet).