It appears someone roughed up the passenger exterior door handle and ultimately kinked the small cable running from the handle to the latch linkage...now the door opens from the inside but not from the outside... I assume I need to remove the handle to replace this cable.....can someone give me an idea as to how to remove the exterior door handle......it looks as though a special tool may be needed.
Please Advise
Thanks
c

 

year ??? I've had my 05's off no special tools needed

it's pretty straight forward but here's my condensed how to...

1. get the door panel off (this part only applies to 05 forward. 04 and prior have a different removal of the door panels)
1a. slide a screwdriver behind the padding. your goal is to wedge the screwdriver between the padding and the "clip" in the pic. it's the clip that has a scratch above it. obviously i missed the clip a few times. i'd recommend taping the screwdriver up to prevent scratching

1b. get trim around the door handle and tweeter off with a screwdriver. it pries right off with ease.


1c. pop off the reflector with a screwdriver


1d. remove the torx screws. behind the reflector, and around the inset oval trim.

1e. wedge a screwdriver between the panel and the body. it takes a little umph... go all the way around from the side, bottom, to the other side. the top will be hanging.


1f. pop out the bottom light and disconnect it.


1g. alright, this takes quite an umph too... youre gonna yank it from the top horizontally. basically away from the door. you can see what the clips look like in this photo


alright, let's move onto the innards.

2. here's what you're going for

there's an allen screw on the white blurry clip and one just above the black cable that goes into the "gold" block. that's the key mechanism.
the black cable is actually only insulation to the cable itself. you can see that it feeds through a latch mechanism and then the another latch mechanism at the end of the cable. go ahead and tug down on it and you'll see for yourself that it's ok to pull on it. remove it from the lower latch mech by pulling down on the cable as much as possible and twisting the cable out of the keyhole slot, then slide it out of the upper plastic latch mech. your hands will most likely get cut up a bit as you'll be fighting with the cable. be patient and you'll figure it out.

removal of allen head screws, use one of these: (as advised by PGT a T-handle allen will do wonders for this job since there are access holes covered by rubber plugs)


get to wrenchin... for the driver's side there are two allen screws, for the passenger there are 3, same areas. you will not need to remove the lock assembly for this at all. it'll stay in place when you finally get the handle off.

reverse steps.
and this is what you get:

 

Thanks for the info........my Mini is a 2003.........I did see the white blurry bracket but due to the acute angle of vision could not see that the fastener has an allen head.......I did disconnect the cable, straighten and reconnect the linkage........ but the sheath/insulation on the cable was so messed up...... the problem re-occurred......so handle removal in next........can you tell me what parts I will need to order to make the repair.........it looks like the cable is fixed directly into the lock/key block, or can the cable somehow be removed and replaced.
Thanks for the help......... the photos are amazing.......i.e. very tight quarters in the door.
Please advise
Craig

 

I've not had to order parts ... was removing to black out ... I'd go to the dealer and they have exploded views and parts break down , Since you know what you need it should be point and order , I think the cable is preattached to the handle ...

 

Does anyone have pictures of this? I took the panel off with out issue, but I cant find what your talking about. Then the lock part came off and then i was rolling down the windows to open the handle from the outside it hit the window. I then got the lock part out of the way. I have a 2005 convertible if that helps. Thanks in advance

 

What exactly are you searching for?

 

I think I found it here https://wiki.bentleypublishers.com/d...and+installing. thanks

 

Great! Hopefully that solved your issue!

-Jorge