New aquaintence and a stuck door...

[Captain Ledd]

So a person who I've met a few times (friend of a friend) asked me to help him move some stuff with my Ranger. He offered some monetary compensation as well, so I agreed.

We loaded up some stuff in the bed on the way there (the bed wasn't full) and to keep it in place he hooked a strap around it (ratchet strap without the ratchet part). Now, I still have the POS plastic liner and my tie downs are covered up. There was a hole in the side which we hooked the one end to and the other end he (supposedly) simply "looped" around the inner part of the door latch (towards the inside) so the door would still latch. All of this is on the passenger side.

Long story short - the door latched alright, and thus far has been impossible to open. I can't pull out the strap from either side and no amount of pushing from the inside budges it.

I'm kind of at a loss. I guess I can try pulling the panel but I don't know how to unlatch the door from the inside. Any tips? or maybe a trick to try to get the door to unlatch?

I'm kinda hoping this may be a simple fix, otherwise I'm going to "persuade" (read: show up with a knife) him to jump in for a ride and have a shop mess with it.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

You might try having someone push in on the door from the outside while you try to open it from the inside.

The door is being pulled out against the latch and is bound up, you will need to relieve the tension on the latch for anything to move.

 

[Captain Ledd]

Kinda sounds like a safety issue to me... Not opening if there's any pressure on it.

Thanks! I'll see if I can mess with it tonight. Hopefully I'll have some success.

 

[Captain Ledd]

SUCCESS!!

Well, dad showed up and with a mighty yank (actually I was pushing too) after a few minutes had the door freed!

I should have known better and reverted to the old fail-safe earlier... pull harder.