92 door latch repair parts anyone?

[SLR_65]

Hi Guys,

I'm beginning to not like my '92 Ranger so much. It replaced an old '74 Chevy C-10. The Chevy ran and ran and after 300,000+ finally spun a bearing. It was beat up, rusty and got terrible mileage. I seriously thought about rebuilding the engine as it'd been such a good truck, but I don't haul that much and the mileage was killing me so I figured a smaller truck would be better and the Rangers appeared to be the most popular so I focused on them. I picked up a '92 Super Cab with a a 3.0 V6 and a 5 speed and as far as power and mileage it's done very well.

What's annoyed me has been a roof leak that I think I may have stopped by sealing the rain gutters, and now the darn driver's side door latch has stopped working. After doing some reading here I found this is a common '92 issue and the problem is due to Ford switching to a cable instead of a rod to actuate the door latch. The cables are no longer available from Ford according to my dealer and no after market companies make them. The innards from an 89-91 door will fit and will permanently fix the problem but I can't find a source for those parts - LMC truck doesn't have them new and all the wrecking yards around here have been crush happy so they don't have anything for this old of a truck. What an annoyance!

I see where someone made a F150 cable work so I'll probably give that a try, but I thought I'd ask if anyone has an actual cable for this they would be willing to part with, or the parts to covert it over to the older style latches (I'd REALLY like to do that so the problem is permanently fixed).

Thanks!

Steve

 

[SLR_65]

Does anyone have a good illustration for either of the 89-91 or the 92 door latch system?

I'd like to see what I'm tearing into and I'd like to see what parts I need to run down for the retro-fit. (The LMC catalog omits a lot of things in this area)

Thanks!

Steve

 

[SLR_65]

I haven't dug far enough to see what the other end of the cable looks like.

Those of you who have seen that end - is it something we could bend on a rod? Or could we braze the cable end onto a rod? The '89-'91 interior door handle assemblies are easy to find as a new reproduction (as are the '92s - why is the handle being reproduced and not the cable???), so it's a matter of making that handle actuate the latch we already have, one would think that would just be a matter of it physically hooking up to the latch and the rod being the correct length.

Any thoughts from those of you who've worked on these before (either the '89-'91 or the '92s)?

Thanks!

Steve