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- Aug 29, 2019
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- North Surrey UK
- My Car
- 1971 Mustang 302 V8
Well after removing my broken door handle, I found 1 Spring missing and anther one broken!
Now searching around on the net it seems that you can't just buy a replacement door spring. The handles normally come as a complete unit.
So how to make a replacement spring.....
The spring type is called a "Torsion Spring"
After carefully filing the flayed head of the rivet and carefully removing it from the door handle, I removed the broken spring.
I used a piece of 2mm x 300mm Piano Wire purchased from eBay.
Next job is to make a tool to bend the spring. I used a small block of plywood which I drilled through and then placed the drill into the hole and clamped the wooden block in a vice.
Note: (Wire in picture is NOT the Piano spring wire, it's just for demonstration).
You need to clamp the end of the wire to the block, I used a couple of washers and a screw as you can see demonstrated above.
With a pair of Vice Grips tightly pull the piano wire around the drill bit, Note: You need a drill bit smaller than the required final spring diameter, when you release the tension on the coil it will expand slightly so the smaller drill bit will allow for this.
Coil made its now ready for bending
Here is the final result.......
Finally now have to make or find some replacement steel rivets
Note: On the Door Handle the springs are wound different ways, there is a Left handed spring and a Right Handed spring with the catch J hooks hooking onto either side of the door handle.So if you are replacing just one spring, make sure you bend it the correct way. ::thumb::
Now searching around on the net it seems that you can't just buy a replacement door spring. The handles normally come as a complete unit.
So how to make a replacement spring.....
The spring type is called a "Torsion Spring"
After carefully filing the flayed head of the rivet and carefully removing it from the door handle, I removed the broken spring.
I used a piece of 2mm x 300mm Piano Wire purchased from eBay.
Next job is to make a tool to bend the spring. I used a small block of plywood which I drilled through and then placed the drill into the hole and clamped the wooden block in a vice.
Note: (Wire in picture is NOT the Piano spring wire, it's just for demonstration).
You need to clamp the end of the wire to the block, I used a couple of washers and a screw as you can see demonstrated above.
With a pair of Vice Grips tightly pull the piano wire around the drill bit, Note: You need a drill bit smaller than the required final spring diameter, when you release the tension on the coil it will expand slightly so the smaller drill bit will allow for this.
Coil made its now ready for bending
Here is the final result.......
Finally now have to make or find some replacement steel rivets
Note: On the Door Handle the springs are wound different ways, there is a Left handed spring and a Right Handed spring with the catch J hooks hooking onto either side of the door handle.So if you are replacing just one spring, make sure you bend it the correct way. ::thumb::
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