Door Stuck

[TheRangerSteve]

Went out to the 87 tonight and couldn't get the door open. From the outside or the inside. Anybody have tricks they've used on their vehicles if this had happened to them. I pulled and pushed on the door. Eventually gave it a hard shove closed hoping to get it to open afterwards. No dice so far. This was the first really cold night we have had and it has been pretty wet. Any chance there's just some moisture in there that a warmer time will clear up.

[Pete M]

it's not uncommon for the latch mechanisms to seize up.  had it happen to me years ago.  had to get the interior panel off (not easy) and yank on the rods directly to finally get it to open.  after opening the door and removing the mechanism, you might be able to restore its functionality with a good soaking.  at the time I just bought a new one.  nowadays I'd just get a working junkyard unit and soak it in lube before installing it.

 

you can try pushing the exterior button at the same time as pulling the interior handle.  might get lucky. :dunno:

[jimoshel]

Can you tell if the mechanism is working or not, or is the door froze shut?

[TheRangerSteve]

Both the button on the exterior handle and the inside handle will move. The lock can be moved with the key or by pushing from inside. I can't tell what's going on inside the door though.

[skel130]

This is a super duper off chance, but one of my doors has a slightly 'sticky' lock mechanism. What I mean by this is when I go to unlock it, sometimes the toggle on the lock doesn't settle all the way, and I have to lock/unlock it several times before the lock switch will actually push in a little more on the unlock side of things. The lock will appear to be unlocked, and you can pull both handles, and it just seems like the door is stuck. Might be worth a shot. 

 

It's like the difference of a small fraction of an inch (maybe like 1/16th or 1/32nd) but you can feel the difference in relation to the door panel, and wether the button is flush. 

[fishdmax]

When I bought my 89 the passenger side door would not open. After driving it home, I live on a rough dirt road, it opened. Great, I closed the door and it was stuck again. Drove around on the road again, hit a few good pot holes, and it opened. I removed the door panel again before I shut the door. The plastic ends on the rods were shot, ordered new ones from Team Cherokee, worked great since.

[Skorpyo]

Agreed with the "stuck" lock. This happened to me after I upgraded to the 97+ door handles on my driver door. It would happen most when I manually lock the door, shut it then try to unlock with the key from the outside. After realizing it was the lock I was able to "learn" the difference between when the key did and did not fully unlock the door. Another suggestion would be to roll the window down and when using the key manually press the unlock button. If you don't feel the toggle go fully flush with the door it's not unlocked. A few back and forth's with the key and toggle unlocks mine. I'm probably going to tear apart the doors and grease the snot out of everything in the spring. Good luck!

 

Tim

[jdougn]

Another thing to consider is that the seal around the door may have had enough moisture on it to freeze the door shut. My Jeep has done this before and after the day warmed up and the door opened I put some light oil on the seal. 

dn

[Truckcom]

I had this same problem for years.  Took the lock mechanism out and soaked it in kerosene overnite, reassembled the whole thing and little difference.  The solution is, once you get the door opened, on the backside of the door next to the outdoor push to open button in the handle you will see a small plastic plug.  Pop this out and lube generously with spray [WD40, etc}, exercise the lock outside and inside a number of times and presto, Fixed.   Since I performed this fix, no more problems.