1989 Chevy Astro Broken door latch. How do I remove rear do

PUNKROCKSILO

MEMBER
1989 CHEVROLET ASTRO

Interior problem
1989 Chevy Astro Automatic

The latch on the outside doesn't work, so I can't open the rear doors. I was going to remove the rear door panels to access the lock assembly, but as far as I can tell, the panels are only designed to come off once the door is open. HELP! I'd love to be able to use the back doors of my van. It would make loading and unloading band gear so much easier. Thanks.
-J

1 Reply

KEEPITROLLING

MEMBER

I had the same problem a few years back (and now the replacement latches are starting to break too!). The best thing, of course, is to replace them before they totally break, but that advice is too late. To get the doors open, I had to take off the cover for the rear AC in order to get access to the screws to be able to take off the upper plastic trim piece. That gave me access to the upper metal piece that the door latching mechanism catches on. Two big screws there, and the top of the door was free. Then I just kicked the doors as hard as I could until the lower metal piece broke. Maybe a real mechanic would know a better way. I couldn't see any way to get the panels off with the doors closed. The good news is that once I replaced the latch, the doors close just fine with only the upper piece. The lower piece adds more strength, but when a van's 20 years old, you're just happy it's still running.