Door handle / boss clearance.

[ChrisM]

Hi All.

Bit of an odd one.
I have safety boss type handles on my doors. Popped the locking drivers side boss on today. No problems.
Went to do the passenger side, no clearance, i.e. the handle fouls the boss. So an afternoon spent taking locks, handles and escutcheons on and off. I am still no wiser. I am confident that I have the correct handle and escutcheon on the drivers side, identified by part number. The remaining bosses are all locking type castings, with odd part numbers and L / R on them. They are handed, being mirror images of each other.
I have two sets of handles here for my two cars. No spares that can have got mixed up. What is odd, is that a pair definitely came off the old doors. I did replace the doors with a better pair during restoration. The only anomaly I can see on the passenger door is the boss mounting hole in the skin is a plain hole not elongated as it is On the drivers side, and on the old doors. So I could be dealing with a re-skinned door. No other misalignment between lock and handle. All works well.

Is there a difference in non locking side escutcheons? This is the only thing I can think has happened, in that I may have somehow lost the original one.

Cheers - Chris.

[jay weinstein]

Could you have just put the safety boss on upside down ?

[ChrisM]

I tried that

Tomorrow, I’m going to take both the handle and boss, & stick them on the old door.

[ChrisM]

Oh Shit.

Well, there’s the proof. I tried the lock and handle assembly on the old door, and there is about 1 -2 mm clearance between the handle and the boss face.
So it’s the door. Area under the boss is slightly raised, but not much. No signs of heavy filling around that area either.

What to do? Screw the boss on and wallop it with a hammer? Not what you want to find on a painted shell.

Edit: lightbulb moment. This door has been re-skinned before I got it. The skin is on too far forward, so the outer escutcheon hole is misaligned with the lock fixings. This misalignment forces the tip of the door handle inwards towards the door skin.
The only thing I can think of (apart from a box of matches) is to elongate all the holes in the door skin, and move the handle and boss back toward the door edge. Only other way is cut the skin off and start all over again.

[111Robin]

Can't you shave a couple of mm from the boss and have it replated?. Seems the path of least resistance/hassle.

[GraemeC]

Or remove the handle again and gently reshape it slightly