1970 inside door latch

[royalpaininthemaroon]

We bought this truck last October because I needed a 4 wheel drive something to leave our house and get the kid to school. I was amazed that it started at all. However, the first day I drove him to school, I discovered I had to roll the window down to get out. We've just put up with it, but now that it's getting warmer, we need to fix stuff before next winter. Yesterday we took the door apart to check out the rods and latches, and soaked the whole thing in the parts cleaner. It was seriously coated in gunk. I finished cleaning it, especially the springs. We considered it might just be that covered in gunk to make it not work. My husband started putting it back together, and it was fine, worked great. When he put the door panel back under it, I realized it wasn't going to work because the latch was missing some metal and the space of the panel created an extra 1/16 of thickness. My question is: what does the complete latch look like, as in, what broke off? When I take our Seabee converted latch off, I want to know what broke off. None of the pics of door handles show the inside part. I call it the trigger for the latch to pull the rod. I just want to see an actual, working part. It looks like someone used a grinder on it.

[Ranchero50]

Post up some pics of what you have. The latch is pretty simple and is shared with the mid sized car family (fairlane / torino). The chrome handle is readily available at junk yards or repro. Should be 3/8" deep well 1/4 drive socket to remove the armrest and a 11/32 nut driver to remove the nuts that hold the handle to the door.

Note that excessive gunk will freeze and goo up in the cold keeping the mechanism from moving freely.

[royalpaininthemaroon]

I soaked the mechanism in my parts cleaner overnight then used brushes and a scribe to dig out the grime. It's almost new again. I would post pics, but we sort of jerry-rigged that latch and put it back in. I don't think my husband wants to mess with it until we get a new latch. It's me that's curious. I just want to know what broke off, mostly. It's the inside pull latch that I'm talking about. It's supposed to lift the spring loaded lever going to the rod. Once the panel is back on it isn't long enough to lift the lever. I wanted to see what is missing from it. We put some old plastic fitting on it to make it longer. All of the pictures I can find just show the front side of it. It's not a huge deal. Just curiosity.

[sargentrs]

Here's a couple of photos I found. Maybe they'll give you some idea.