Can I use 70's interior door handles in my 80's truck?

[bennylava]

I'm going through and fixing a lot of problems in my 87 truck's interior. And I never liked the stick-like interior door handles of the 80's trucks. The 70's door handles always seemed nicer looking, without suffering from the permanent 'bent inwards' state that the 80's door handles always have.

So can it feasibly be done? What all would I need to change in order to get the 70's handles to work on my truck? Would it just involve buying the handle "cups" from a 70's door panel? Or could the 80's handle cups be modified?

I searched through some old threads, and a member said:

"Those are 81+ handles, which will only work with 81+ panels, same for the 77-80 handles, will only work with 77-80 panels."

[TKCR]

I believe that is the case, the handles can only work with the corresponding door and inner handle garnish.

[hatzie]

1973-1976 doors are very different from 1977-1991 doors.

1977-1991 panels and handles can be swapped around as a package deal.

There are differences. The handles might fit but they won't look right in a door panel that's not from the same year interior.

To be safe I'd just get the interior panel from the same year as the door handles.

[bennylava]

Originally Posted by TKCR

I believe that is the case, the handles can only work with the corresponding door and inner handle garnish.

Well I am willing to hack things to pieces in order to try, so there is that .

It looks like the late 70's handle can fit in the 80's cup, but you have to alter the 80's handle cup. Not sure about the backside though. Looks like the handle will bolt to the door without issue. I've got it all here and I'll experiment in the name of science.

Originally Posted by hatzie

1973-1976 doors are very different from 1977-1991 doors. ...

To be safe I'd just get the interior panel from the same year as the door handles.

If it doesn't work out, I'll be attempting to fix the 80's handle so it doesn't bend inwards over time. Looks to me like all you'd need to do is weld a piece of metal on the part where the handle rests. GM didn't put metal all the way across, so over time the handle can bend the metal it rests upon. That's what makes the handle able to bend inwards.

But if that metal spanned the whole gape, well there could be no bending and thus the handle would have to stay straight no matter what.

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by bennylava

Well I am willing to hack things to pieces in order to try, so there is that .

It looks like the late 70's handle can fit in the 80's cup, but you have to alter the 80's handle cup. Not sure about the backside though. Looks like the handle will bolt to the door without issue. I've got it all here and I'll experiment in the name of science.



If it doesn't work out, I'll be attempting to fix the 80's handle so it doesn't bend inwards over time. Looks to me like all you'd need to do is weld a piece of metal on the part where the handle rests. GM didn't put metal all the way across, so over time the handle can bend the metal it rests upon. That's what makes the handle able to bend inwards.

But if that metal spanned the whole gape, well there could be no bending and thus the handle would have to stay straight no matter what.

There should be a small rubber sleeve that fits over the stop. That keeps the handle co planar in appearance with the cup. It also provides some noise damping if the handle is allowed to snap back.

Because the sleeve can come loose or get lost a later version of the handle has a more robust small rubber bumper, which retains with a carrot tail that pulls through a hole in the bracket.

IIRC my truck had one design on the LH door and the other design on the RH door.

In either case it should be relatively easy to keep the handles flush with the door cup without having to get the welder out.

K

[bennylava]

Well here's how it would look if you combined the 70's handle with the 80's door cup. That's about how it would be in the door, I just mounted it to a couple 2x4's for a quick test. I didn't really care about mangling my cups because they're kind of gnarly already and I wanted to replace them. New ones are $24.


https://i.imgur.com/QvUEzC6.jpg

Two points:

1. I'm not sure how you'd cut into the 80's cup without jagged edges. That's the work of a dremel. There's probably a way to do it, but even then you'll have sharp edges with the chrome. The rest of the edges on the cup would contrast with that because they're rounded. Maybe someone has a method of making it look better. But the only thing I can think of is 3D printing.

2. Even if you managed to make the alteration to the cup look fine, you can see that there's a big black area now at the rear of the handle. That has to be exposed for the handle to work. It couldn't function unless you remove that much material from the cup. Doesn't look good. Even if it was shiny reflective silver like the cup, it still wouldn't look quite right. But maybe it wouldn't be all that noticeable?

Too many problems, probably have to scrap the whole idea. But as you can see it does work with modification.

[hatzie]

If the cup wasn't plated plastic you could probably massage the edges so it wouldn't be terribly noticeable.
If you like the 70's handles just use the 77-80 door cards. The faux wood and scrolled aluminum trim is unusual and kinda cool IMHO.

[bennylava]

Yes I may do that at some point. But iirc, there's some difficulty in finding a nice set of door cards for the 73-91 vehicles. A set that looks factory. A lot of places sell them, but when you see them, you know they'd never have came out of the factory like that. But they look better than the crusty stuff that came off the truck.

Thought about restoring mine with SEM but they've lost the pebbling at the top and the sun has warped them. I think the only option is that one site that sells nice ones, for $600 and a 6 week waiting period.

[LDO]

Originally Posted by Keith Seymore

There should be a small rubber sleeve that fits over the stop. That keeps the handle co planar in appearance with the cup. It also provides some noise damping if the handle is allowed to snap back.

Because the sleeve can come loose or get lost a later version of the handle has a more robust small rubber bumper, which retains with a carrot tail that pulls through a hole in the bracket.

IIRC my truck had one design on the LH door and the other design on the RH door.

In either case it should be relatively easy to keep the handles flush with the door cup without having to get the welder out.

K

Keith,
Any chance you have pictures of this?

[rick1956]

I just happened to have my door panel apart... Here's what he's talking about. As you can see, mine is about to depart from age also:

[LDO]

Oh dang. Are you talking about the part I circled?
Wonder what we could use as a replacement.

[rick1956]

Yep, pretty much any piece of tubing or hose you've got laying around will work. It's all about the wall thickness.
I'm not sure, but I believe they have updated the design of these to use a rubber snubber instead... someone else can chime in on that.

[LDO]

My apologies to bennylava for hi-jacking his thread.

I created a new thread HERE