Both door handles have broken. Need assistance with removal of inside door cover and instruction on replacement of handle and lock.
I'm assuming that you have the coupe not convertible since I've had same problem with my 97 Dodge Avenger and this is quite common from what I have heard. The handle is held in place by two 10mm bolts. One is easily accessable, located right beside the handle with the door open. The other is a little harder to get at. The first thing you need to do is remove the inside door cover, held in place by four screws and push in clips along the bottom that pull out easily. Two of the screws are visible and in the top corners of the door panel. One screw is located behind the inside handle and once removed the moulding comes off quite easily. The other screw is in the hand hold where you pull the door closed and has a small plastic cover over it. If you have power windows you are able to disconnect the switches once the panel is off. If manual windows, the handles are usually held on by a clip that can be pushed off with a screw driver allowing you to pull of the crank handle. The window needs to be in the closed position so you can access the ONE 10mm bolt holding the outer door handle. Once the interior door panel is off, if any clips remain in the door, take them out and put them where they should be in the door cover it won't go back together properly if you don't. Now you'll need to pull down the corner of the plastic covering the door, don't remove all the plastic just enough to allow access to the bolt. I used a small rachet to get it out. It is in a stupid spot with not much room but is doable. Once out, the handle is only being held by the lock rods to the handle and lock cylinder. The lock cylinder is held by a retaining clip which can be slid off allowing the cylinder to be pushed out. The other rod connected to the handle has a plastic clip on it holding it in place. This can be opened with a small screwdriver. Once opened the rod will come out easily and the handle should come off the door. The only problem reinstalling, that I had, was reconnecting the rod to the handle and found that if you unscrew the door latch, the whole mechanism can be moved down, giving you more freedom to work with the rod. You might want to do this before fighting with the clip holding the rod in place, just a thought as I got mine apart in 20 min. Installing the new handle is quite easy, just attach rod to the handle FIRST before anything else. Once the handle is back on the door the lock cylinder can be pushed back in, it just gets in the way if you put it in the handle right away. Hope this is of some help.
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replace Exterior door handle 2001 Prelude
about to buy the part online and install myself dont know how to install it.
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