[muscle_collector]

ive ran into this over the years where you push the button and it wont open the doors. ive been able to sometimes take a screw driver and lift up on the door and get it to work, but this time i cant get either to budge. any ideas???

[johnmilza]

can you open it from the inside? Have you taken the door panel off to see

[johnta1]

Sounds like the door hinges are sagging if you have to raise it?

[muscle_collector]

tried raising the door. this usually works but not on this one. its almost like the doors are locked (which they arent). i ended up managing to get one door open on the one car but cant get the other side to open even from inside. the other one is a no go on either side.

[indymanjoe]

I had a spring on the latch asm break once and it was exactly as you described.

[muscle_collector]

what did you do to open it?

[johnta1]

This reminded me of my grandson's door latch on his S-10.
His had a sagging hinge, and his constant slamming I think broke or bent something in the latch.


A pic from amazon:







That spring thingy is what was mention previously I think?


His though I think was one of the levers was bent or link was off.
Anyway, I had to go through the inside of door and try and manuever

the lever while someone pulled up and out to open it.
Basically activating the latch manually.


Yours is for Pontiac but looking at it you may be able to see how it is supposed to work?


Window had to be up also probably.

[indymanjoe]

in the pic above the spring in the top of the latch you can barely see is what i had to replace,maybe not the same latch asm though but it looked like that. i had a hell of a time opening the door. i think i used a pick or similar to finagle it open. been 12yrs

[johnta1]

That is right!
It had the partial hook still on it and the rest was in the bottom of the door.

The older Pontiac latches may not look exactly like this one, but the fundamental idea is probably about the same.

[Gary H]

I've ran into this with several cars with both original door latches, and brand-new reproduction latches. In most cases, I've been able to eventually get it open by inserting a long J shaped rod down in the door and pulling on the lock components and jiggling the door handle at the same time. However, on two cars I had to basically destroy the door latch to get it open. It's just a roll of the dice.