I had a similar problem with my 85 vanagon with the problem getting worse. It seemed that going over a bumpy road jarred the mechanism unlatching the door. Eventually, the vibration of the van, opened the door. Solution. Replaced the rear door latching mechanism on the sliding door itself. Removed the interior door panel, unscrew the old, screw in the new. The problem was in loosening the 2 screws due to the bad angle. I used a socket wrench with a screw driver drive on the 3/8" rachet (I got this off my impact driver.) Took about 30 minutes with all the screwing around. Got the part from Camelback VW in Phoenix. They have an 800 #; it cost me around $30 and they ups'ed it to me. |
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