>I experienced this problem with my '86GL some years back. The door began >opening while traveling -usually when I would hit a bump or something. I >realized that it started shortly after -while in a fit of rage- I had >slammed the door.

Fits of rage are bad for Vanagon sliding doors.

A couple of years ago, we drove our '80 Westy (different door mechanism, I know) to Alaska. In the Alaska summer, there are basically no nights, and the roads are really long. Thus, we were driving a _lot_. Three kids in the back, always fighting. Dad up front getting increasingly short tempered. A long climb (a really long climb) up a grade between Anchorage and Tok. Too much. I pulled off at a spectatular view of the glacier way down below us. I did not look -- I charged around the van, yanked the damned door open to yell at the $!@!# kids. Ripped the door right off the van.

My wife was *real* happy. "Great -- we're hundreds of miles from anywhere in Alaska, and you tear the door off!"

Well, I got it back together. Funny thing is that the door had never really worked well anyway. Afterwards, it fit *much* better -- closing almost as easily as our later Vanagons, and opening really nice, too. I guess I had needed to take the door off and rework it a bit.

Halfway between nothing and nowhere in a fit of rage is *not* the time.

Malcolm