550 door handle problem

Has anyone had problems with the interior door handle becomming unusable while the exterior handle works fine? When I pull up on the opener, there is no resistance. I have removed the armrest and inspected the tie rods attached to the opener itself and they look ok, so the problem has to be further inside. The tie rod that goes from the lever beyond the inner metal door panel seems to be attached and in the proper position. I suspect that this may be a problem with latch itself. Does anyone have any exerience with this issue? It seems that it would be very unusual to have a door latch break on a little used door. Oh well. I would like to fix myself if possible. If anyone has directions and/or photos to help with removal and replacement of the interior door panel, I would appreciate it. Thanks.

 

I'm glad to hear that I'm not alone. Thanks. Anyone have shop manual instructions?

 

There are certainly two loose screws between the left and right door jambs and they can usually be found sitting in the seats.

The portion of the latch on the jamb seems fine and the screws are tight. The problem seems to be the part of the latch inside the door panel itself.
Thanks. Any other thoughts?

 

Well, I got it fixed. To remove the door interior panel you have to remove the window switches from the door pull and then remove four little screws below them. Then the top portion of the door pull comes off revealing three bolts attaching the handle to the door inner metal panel. Probably not too clever for those familiar with this arrangement, but it had me stumped. The problem with the latch was that the intermediate set of levers between the first and second set of tierods had a loose screw and stripped out the square hole that mates into the pinion shaft. A little welding to fill the lever hole, a little filing to resquare the hole, and I am back in business. Thanks.