Inner rear door panel removal

I may have a unique problem due to having a European spec car. My passenger's back door doesn't open from the inside. I assume that either the inner latch is broken or the strap that connects it to the mechanism is broken or off for some reason. I was trying to remove the inner panel the other day, and got the three screws at the top of the panel out without a problem. The two screws that attach the lower end of the pull handle to the door are another story though. These screw into the door pull from behind the panel inside of a metal housing attached to the door. If I pull the panel away from the bottom of the door, I can see the heads of the screws, but, there is not enough space to get a screwdriver of any size in there to remove them. One of them is actually located inside the metal housing that the handle is attached to. I can just see the screw, but there is no way in hell to get a screwdriver in there. What is the trick to remove these?

Has anyone had any experience with this? Any ideas short of doing the gorilla thing and forcibly ripping the thing off the door? It would be nice to be able to open the door from inside the car.

Thanks.

The child safety lock isn't activated is it?

I never stopped to consider that cars this age might have those. I'll have to take a look.

Tried the safety lock a few minutes ago. Not the problem. There is no resistance at all in the inner door latch, so I assume something is either broken or disconnected.

Just need to figure out how to unscrew the door panel from inside the door cavity.

You don't have to undo those screws - if you have a Bentley Manual see page 411-3
Remove the 3 screws at the top (inside ashtray, behing door lever and in the handle) then, you pry loose the clips all aroud and then, pulling the top of the panel away from the door, lift up. The center of the panel is held in a clip that will slip free as the panel is lifted vertically.
Sounds like the cable connecting the interior lever to the catch may be borken - they are inexpensive parts but a pain to replace because the end that connects to the latch is in a pretty tight place.
Good luck.

OK, I'll give that a try. My bet is that the strap is broken or disconnected also. Good news is that I should be able to pull the one from the 92 that I'm scrapping. Just couldn't figure out how to get the panel off the door.

As I recall, this is one of those cases where assembly is NOT the reverse of removal. Putting the door panel back on you remove the clip from the door and place it back on the panel. Then when you go to reinstall the panel you can simply bang the whole thing back into engagement on the door. You'll see what I mean when you look at it.

I'll take a look this weekend. Have a bunch of suspension work to do too.

Well, I found out what the problem was. The connecting strap from the latch to the mechanism was broken near the mechanism. Luckily, I haven't junked my 92 just yet and was able to pull the part from the door on that car. Think I may pull all the others tomorrow just in case.

You were right about how the panel comes and goes back together. Made the process go a whole lot faster.