How to replace the rear door handle and lock on a Land Rover Defender

The rear door handle and lock has been playing up for some time which has meant me having to climb over the back seats to open the rear door.

So earlier this week I put an end to the misery and bought a new rear door handle assembly and lock barrel. The whole new assembly and lock was around £30, so not a mega expensive part.

This is how I fitted it – you will have to excuse the rusty rear door – it will be replaced at some point 😉

Its an easy job, so this is what you need:

Fitting the lock barrel

I bought a new lock barrel and fitting it into the handle assembly is as easy as pushing it into place!

Fitting the new rear door handle and lock assembly

Its a straight forward job to replace the rear door handle and lock, just undo the 4 bolts/nuts holding the assembly in place and remove.

I had trouble undoing one of the bottom nuts. As it turned out, this was because of a stripped thread from a previous owner. The 2 top and 2 bottom bolts are held captive on a retainer plate as shown below

When removing the assembly be careful not to rip the gasket (I did!).

Fitting is the reverse of removal. As I didn’t have a new retainer plate to replace the stripped thread, I put in a couple of normal bolts.

You will need to check that the new rear door handle and lock assembly lines up with the striker plate on the body (it should do).If any adjustment is needed, its just a case of loosening 2 bolts on the striker plate and moving it into the required position.

It took me about 20 minutes to complete the job, and most of that time was trying to get the nut undone from the stripped thread!

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