I have recently been stuck at home recovering from relatively minor surgery, and decided to tackle a couple of "low-impact" fixes on my '85.

  The door locks were not working with the key, from the outside. The passenger door never did, but recently the driver's door stopped, too. I decided to replace them both with the handles from my '91 parts van. Both of those locks worked, and the handles were not nearly as weathered. The swap was SO easy. I am so happy that this project went as it should have. No broken bolts, or stripped screws, or interchangable parts that didn't. The Bentley instructions were very brief, which usually leaves me kind of worried. But, it turns out the job really is that simple.

  I also lost the handle on the sliding door. During a bitterly cold snap we had here in Michigan last February, the handle snapped, leaving just a stub. You could open the door, but it took strong hands on the small piece that was left! Trading out that handle for the one from the parts van also went very smoothly. I was surprised!  20 minutes from start to finish.
  I had visions of a mechanical mess, and had a back-up plan of maybe just swapping the whole sliding door if the handle was too complicated.

  Now all the passenger entry doors on my van lock and unlock, with the same key (!), and I didn't break anything, or hurt myself!

  I guess the moral of this little rambling tale is "Don't let the project scare ya - look at it, and give it a try. You may just surprise yourself!" I know I did!

  Now to try and find that %$#&^(* exhaust leak....