Use Jetta handles to repair Fox handles by tylernt

5 minute read

Use Jetta handles to repair Fox handles

Compliments of tylernt @ http://forums.vwvortex.com

3-31-2007

Here is the most common cause of broken door handles. There is a U-shaped blade that a lug on the finger lever fits into. This assembly is made of cheap pot metal, so this blade snaps off and the lug has nothing to act on.

The first thing we're going to do is drill out the brass rivet. Use a bit slightly larger than the rivet, it's ok if you damage the lever as that's what's broken and you're just going to throw it away anyway.

The rivet will spin as you try to drill it. That's fine, just drill as fast as your drill will go and push hard, and it will pop out:

The rivet will come out the rest of the way by prying it out with a screwdriver, or by pushing it with a drill bit a little bit smaller than the rivet:

Ta-da!

Ok, now grab that Jetta handle and remove the roll pin. I didn't realize it was a roll pin before I started drilling on it, so you could probably just use a drill bit slightly smaller than the roll pin and just hammer it out without drilling. Keep the pin, you'll need it.

Now we have a small problem. The fork in the lever is a little too narrow or the Fox pivot towers are a little too thick. The mechanism won't work smoothly.

I used a cutoff wheel on a Dremel to remove a small amount of material from the inside of the fork of the lever. The stuff is cheap pot metal so a little pressure removes a lot of material. There are two forks, you may need to enlarge both. Don't remove too much material or the operation will become sloppy and prone to jam and break.

The roll pin has a slight taper on one end. That's the end you drive in first. The roll pin is basically a flat piece of metal rolled into a cylinder. You can see the slot on one side. It's slightly larger than the hole it goes in. As the pin is driven in, the metal is forced into a tighter cylinder than it wants to be, and this tension is what holds the pin in.
Transfer the good lever and the roll pin to your Fox handle.
After driving in the pin, ensure that the backside is flush with the lever. Otherwise, it will interfere with the operation of the handle. If you can only depress the finger lever partway, push the pin in so that it's not protruding out the back as shown here:

Now clean, lubricate, and reinstall. Rejoice that you didn't have to search high and low for a Fox in the junkyard only to discover that the door handles had already been harvested by some lucky bastage before you. Using this technique, I believe it is also possible to reverse a passenger door handle to be a drivers door handle. The finger lever has two lugs, one of which isn't used. If you flip it over I think you can use the other lug. (You might need to unscrew the back of the lock cylinder and rotate it 180 degrees too.) I haven't tried it but don't see why it wouldn't work.

5-10-2008

Update:
Unfortunately, my roll pin fell out inside the door, never to be seen again. I guess you need to peen the narrow end or something to keep it from working its way out with use.
However, I have a fix. I just went to my local hobby store (where they sell R/C cars and planes and such) and got a 3mm x 10 bolt and a 3mm nylock nut (red arrow). These replaced the roll pin quite nicely. Unfortunately, I had to dremel out the unused "nub" (green arrow) so this handle will no longer work on the opposite side of the car, but oh well.