1997 Ford Ranger Front Interior Door Handle Latch Cable TRQ BDA69207

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In this video we're going to be working with our 2001 Ford Ranger. We're going to show you how to remove and replace your interior door latch cable, which is this cable that runs from the door handle over to the lock mechanism and allows you to open your door from the inside.

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Here are the items that you'll need for this repair: Phillips screwdriver, flat blade screwdriver, drill and drill bits, zip ties, snips, rivets, rivet gun

Open your door, and remove the two Phillips head screws below the door handle. Open the door handle, and release this panel from the door. Pry up and remove the electrical connectors from this panel, using a small flat blade screwdriver to do this. You want to be careful not to break these arms off.

This connector is removed by undoing the two Phillips head screws. You might have to just pry carefully to separate this connector with your flat blade. Remove the last connector the same way we did with the first one by prying up on those tabs and popping it off. Remove the Phillips head screw we just uncovered by removing that panel. One more Phillips head screw at the bottom corner here. Lift up on the panel and remove it from the truck. Remove the inner door liner, and be careful not to tear it. This adhesive on the backside is reusable if properly stored, so make sure you lay this skin down with the adhesive facing up in a clean, dry place.

The interior door handle is held into the door at the rear with this one rivet, which we'll have to drill out. Pinch these connectors together and push them through, because they secure the cable that is connected to the interior door handle, and it'll give us a little more slack to pull the handle out so we have more room to work with. Lift up on the back of the door handle and pull back until the hooks release. You can lay the handle out now. Peel back this rubber cover on the backside of the handle. Pop the clip out of the retainer here.

Once that's out, you can rotate it and remove the cable from the handle. Remove this rubber cover from the end of the cable. Release this last anchor here the same way we did with the first two. Bring the cable down and out of the door to give us some room to work on the other half.

Remove this cover on the top of the cable at the lock actuator. It simply pops up from the bottom and folds out of the way. The rest of the cable then slides towards the outer portion of the door. You may be able to remove it with a pair of pliers. Pull back on the cable to lock the arm as far back as possible, you may need to hold it there with a flat blade screwdriver. Move the ball end up and out of the way and remove the cable from the latch assembly.

Here we have our old part that we removed from our vehicle and our new part from 1AAuto.com. As you can see, these cables are exactly the same with the same ends on them. The only thing you'll really have to do here is spread the clips and transfer them onto your new cable to make sure that it stays in where it's supposed to go. These cable ends tend to break or, the cables can fray and break off internally, making it so that you can't open your vehicle from inside. Either because the cable is torn and the cable just pulls right out of the housing or if these clips get broken, you end up pulling the whole assembly rather than just the interior cable designed to operate the latch. If you can't get out from inside of your truck with the interior handle, this new part from 1A Auto is going to go in direct fit just like your original equipment and fix you up right.

Send the cable back through the latch, and move the latch back. You'll have to hook the cable around there. This can be pretty tricky. You might have to try it a few times or get it with a flat blade screwdriver. Line up the cable end into its slot. Pinch it back into place there with your pliers. Reinstall the plastic cover. Once the cover is on, you can start reconnecting your plastic anchors. If your plastic anchors break like ours did, find a zip tie with a head too big to go through the opening, and feed it through and around the cable, back out of the opening, and zip tie it into place. Now, don't tighten this down all the way just yet because, we want to make sure that our cable is properly routed before we lock it in.

One of our anchors is not broken, so we'll reattach that one. Reinstall the cable into the back of the handle, hook it through, and lock the cable end into place. Reinstall the rubber cover on the back. Set the hooked ends in first, slide them forward until our bolt hole lines up.

Just to be extra sure that we're not going to pull this new anchor we've made here out of zip ties through, we'll loop another one through. This can be any size you have handy. Tighten that fully on there, and then you can finish tightening down your zip tie. Repeat this step with the top one if needed, and then trim the ends off. We're going to be using a new bolt to go through here rather than installing a new rivet.

In our case, we'll be tightening it up with a 13mm socket, ratchet, and wrench, but your case may be different depending on what hardware you use. As always, check for proper operation before reinstalling your door panel.

Reinstall your weather shielding. Pull the wire harness through. It's easiest to line up to the top of the interior door handle here and then simply press it into place. These hooks on the inside of the door panel will slide into these slots on the inside edge of the door. Be sure that the wiring harness is pulled through when you start, and that you hook in to the weather seal under the window here, and that you line up the door lock into its hole.

With our lock in place and our door in the weatherstrip at the top of the window, we'll push in there, and then we can move along and lift up slightly and push in to engage the rest of our door panel before reinstalling the first two screws.

Reinstall your electrical connectors to the appropriate switches. We'll have to reinstall the two Phillips head screws for our window switch. Once all your switches are reinstalled, line up this panel into your door, snap the clips back into place, and reinstall the two Phillips head screws under the door handle.

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