Sliding door and door locks

Let's start fixing that sliding door and get the door locks all rekeyed to one matching key...

Sliding door track cover, sliding door, and front door panels all off:



One problem with the sliding door- rear hinge mechanism nylon guide broken. This is common. Just needs replaced with a new one for the door to slide well. We will also remove that whole rear hinge mechanism and refurbish it. It has many moving parts that, after 33 years, needs maintained!

This is hilarious! It's the catch mechanism. It is on the sliding door and holds the door in the open position. It is then activated by the sliding door handle to release the door in order to close it.  One of the captive nuts in the door broke off so someone used a sheetrock wall style anchor (in the door) with this long screw (left side). The second picture shows you the anchor that did not hold. As a result of this botched hippy-fix, the whole mechanism was loose and thus not holding and releasing the door properly.  We will have to remove a captive nut piece from a parts bus and re-install it in this bus.  I have never seen this problem in a bus before. Congrats on a first.

This was stuck in that hole. There SHOULD be a captive nut behind in instead.

Door panels removed for exterior handle/lock removal. The old plastic will be replaced with new. We will likely refurbish the window regulators and the door latching/locking mechanisms. All new seals going into these doors. Not one of my favorite jobs.

Door handles removed. In the middle is the engine hatch lock. At the bottom is the sliding door lock. The first 3 will be matched to the sliding door lock/ignition/rear hatch so that all are on one key.

Voila! Here is why we took the sliding door lock off- to get the bus' key code. This will be given to the locksmith in order to rekey the others (though they can probably do it without the code -just the key- it is nicer/more accurate to do it from the code and also cut a new key from the actual code

These gold-ish tabs activate the door locking mechanisms. These ones are not stock. Someone replaced them (stock ones likely broke) with aftermarkets. This is a sign that the door locking mechanisms are sticky and, after 33 years, need refurbished (removed, cleaned, relubricated).  UNLESS, they recognized this problem and did it when they changed these. I doubt it. People usually just fix a problem and don't actually determine why that problem happened and fix the underlying problem/s.  We might replace these tabs with stock ones from donor locks, unless I deem these to be strong enough. It's nice to have as much German factory parts as possible though!

Enjoy!?