door handle failures

[Pat Dolan]

I seem to be having all of the age related failures all at once on my '97 K15. The passenger's door has been difficult to open with the interior handle for some time, now the driver's door was starting to be a bit tough as well. This morning, during a panic call (SIL responding to 911, me flying down the street to grab baby so he could dispatch), the interior handle broke on LH door.

My question is: before I order stuff or take things apart, what exactly is causing difficulty in releasing the latch? Is it in the latch end, the pull rod or the actual handle? Obviously, I need one handle, but should I just buy two and will this fix the problem?

[DennisG01]

This is going back a few years, but the same thing (hard to open, eventually broke) happened to my dad's truck. I got a new inside handle assembly from NAPA (maybe a dealer... don't remember). I think it was about $35.

For the hard to open part (again going from memory), I believe it was the little plastic piece that connects the steel rod (from the inside handle) to the latching mechanism. It was weak/partially broken.