Mike,

Get inside the car and pop off the interior panel with a stiff putty
knife wrapped in tape or a screwdriver similarly padded. Unscrew the
handles, of course. When you're in there, you'll see a rod going
front to back, with an adjustment mechanism that operates with an
adjusting nut and a jam nut to lock it. You want to tighten it to
compensate for wear. Adjust, then try the door. Do this a couple of
times. Don't forget to lube stuff while you're in there.

If this doesn't get it, there's a catch just behind the rear of the
door (outside the car). Look under the panel that the U-shaped
bracket slide in. Look fore and aft and you'll see the screws. Take
them out, and take a block of wood wrapped in carpet and after
pulling out on the metal lid to loosen it, tap up. Keep wiggling and
tapping till the cover pops off. Now you can see, lube, get to and
adjust this mechanism and watch it in operation to see if anything is
wrong.

This doesn't take very long, I'd do it at the first opportunity so
that you are not locked out completely. As I recall, there is some
"bootsrap" issue in removing the panel where the door must open to
get the panel off in the first place. As I recall, once you can't
open it at all, you can't fix it either without tearing up the panel.

Jim

On Aug 7, 2006, at 9:05 AM, mike elliott wrote:

> I would swear on a stack of whatever holy book you offered that I
> asked this
> question last year, but a search of the archives didn't turn up
> anything.
> False memory? It baffles science. Anyway, I'm looking for help with
> Mellow
> Yellow's sliding door: we're having trouble opening it. There seem
> to be
> three motions involved: rotation of the handle by pressing on it
> (works
> fine); movement of the door outward, away from the interior of the
> van (does
> not seem to complete, I need to put my hip into it from inside the
> van); and
> sliding rearward on the tracks (which is does just fine once the
> door has
> been popped fully outward with my hip). Thoughts on what might be
> causing
> the incomplete outward motion?
>
> -- Rocket Squirrel
>