On Nov 5, 2009, at 5:51 PM, Rocket J Squirrel wrote:

> I need to get behind the forward edge of the door panel on the
> inside of
> the sliding door on my '84 to access the stem of the door handle. It's
> loose and feels mainly like the bolt is coming out. Or it may be
> cracked.
> Visual inspection is called for.
>
> I recall that the clips on my '71 aircooled bus had rusted badly
> enough
> that removal and re-attachment of the panel was iffy. Are there any
> "gotchas" I need to be prepared for when I go to open this patient?

Yep, you might need to replace many of  the clip thingys. Ask moi how
I know?  The early "clips" for lack of the correct terminology break
off easily as they are now plastique, not metal like the earlier
westy interior panels. Even w/ my really good professional vanagon
experienced body guy doing the removing, I had to order new ones from
BD, have them flown in, so he could paint them to match the og ones,
& install when I replaced my sliding door due to an "oops".  That
said, I have left several around the latch off after I had to replace
my outside door handle after it broke it, & didn't want to replace
any more if I had to access the latch again.  You can access the
latch w/o removing all the clips. Removing the clips also tends to
muck up the panel unless you are really careful, use the proper fork
like tool to remove.

YMMV,

Mr. BZ

>
> --
> Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott
> 84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana")
> 74 Westrailia: (Ladybug Trailer company, San Juan Capistrano, Calif.)
> Bend, OR
> KG6RCR

Tom Buese
tombuese@comcast.net