When I purchased my van the seller informed me that neither the rear nor the sliding side door opened. While showing me the broken handle on the side door, the seller suggested the door needed a simple $25 part that took 15 minutes to install. As someone who has sold multiple vehicles I can tell you that if the door could have been fixed in 15 minutes for $25, the seller would have already done it. As a friend of mine likes to say, I was born at night, but not last night.

There is an inherent logistical issue when it comes to repairing broken doors on vehicles, which is that every YouTube video and set of repair instructions begins with telling you to open the door, which is the one thing a broken door doesn’t do. It’s like discovering your vehicle has four flat tires and the only suggestion anyone has is to drive it to the nearest tire repair shop. Even worse is when your broken door didn’t break in the most common of ways. If you search the internet for issues with Ford Econoline sliding doors, you’ll find one single issue reported over and over… and since my door seemed to have a different issue, we had to get creative.

I say “we” because once again Jeff came over to help me diagnose and ultimately repair the door. Physical labor I can do, but when it comes to figuring out what’s wrong with parts I cannot see, I guess my brain just doesn’t work that way.

On the rear door we discovered that the internal and external handles pull separate cables that actuate the same latch which disengages the door. After some internet sleuthing we discovered that the sliding side door has three latches: two in the front and one in the rear. All three latches need to disengage for the door to slide open. Fortunately all the internal molding is missing (or was never installed) on my cargo van, allowing us at least some visibility inside the door. With a bit of poking around we discovered the top front latch was not working, the bottom front latch was broken, and the rear latch was completely seized up. The design of the door gave us easy access to the front two latches. Jeff zip-tied the bottom latch in the open position and was able to manually reach into the access hole and activate the top latch, but still the door wouldn’t budge. I knew the rear latch was going to give us problems, and I was right.

While digging around inside the door, we found a short but rather stout-looking spring. Jeff was concerned that it went to one of the latches, but it turned out it went to something else that we wouldn’t discover for a few more days.

Ultimately I ended up purchasing an “IDAGE Wireless Endoscope Borescope Camera” off Amazon for about $25. The camera was 5′ in length and 1/5 of an inch thick with an LED light on the end, which allowed us to snake it deep into the door and visually see the locked-up latch. The camera relays video to your phone, and while the picture isn’t fantastic it was good enough for us to see what was wrong, and more importantly, where to pry. With multiple long and strong screwdrivers, Jeff was able to pry the latch open which instantly caused the door to slide open and me to scream like a schoolgirl!

With the door open we were able to replace the internal mechanism that I ordered off of Amazon. Along with the main mechanism required to open the door it also came with all new cables, a new internal handle, and a new rear latch. The assembly cost $150, not $25 as suggested by the seller.

However even after installing all the new parts, the outside handle still does not work. Internally it’s an inch away from touching the mechanism, and on the outside of the van it just kind of flops around. Back on Amazon (can Amazon please sponsor this van?) I found a replacement exterior door handle. While looking at the picture online I noticed additional parts toward the bottom of the handle which appear to engage the internal mechanism. Attached to the bottom of the handle is (wait for it) a large spring, which looks very similar to the rusty one we found inside the door.

Mystery solved.

The external handle is on the way and should be a cinch to install now that the door opens. Because the door hasn’t been opened in years, I need to add a little grease to the track. Now that the van has a full set of functioning doors, it’s time to start on the floors.