Background:

My 1998 ford crown victoria police interceptor was ordered from ford with the interior rear door handles inoperative according to the factory build sheet. I also did not have the parts that connect the lock knob on the top of the door to the latch. Was just an empty circular hole in the door panel where the lock knob would typically be. The only way to open the doors was to first press the power door lock button on one of the front doors and then lift the exterior handle on the rear door..

If the power lock actuator ever ceased to function properly, I would not have been able to lock or unlock the door anymore. If it happened to fail in the unlocked position, any stranger in a parking lot could open my rear door by simply lifting the handle. If it happened to fail in the locked position, I wouldn't be able to open my own door without the use of a "slimjim" or similar device.

Each police department is different. Some like mine, order their cars with the rear doors inoperative from the factory, and the parts to enable them placed in a bag located in the trunk. Others order them with the interior rear door handles fully operational and just engaged the "child safety" switch to keep prisoners from opening the rear doors from the inside. Some leave the rods in place, but remove the actual inside handle from the door. Others remove the factory door panel entirely and screw a peice of flat plastic over the door part internals, this is common in college towns and k9 units where easy cleanup is a must. Point here is that if you've already tried sliding the child safety switch and have not had success making the rear door handles operative from inside the car, you're going to have to remove the door panels and determine which parts are physically present and which are not.

Acquiring the Parts:

Initially, one of the biggest obstacles preventing me from enabling the rear doors so they could be opened from the inside of the car was physically acquiring the parts. When I purchased my crownvic p71, I noticed that the rear door interior handles were inoperative and also observed that the needed parts to re-enable them were not in the car. When I asked the seller where to acquire the needed parts, I was told to go to the wrecking yard. The problem with the wrecking yard route was that the majority of the salvage yards that have late model vehicles are not self serve and do not want to be bothered with the effort of sending an employee out to the yard to pull $10 worth of parts off a door. Another issue is that unless the door is physically damaged, salvage yards typically want to sell the entire door as one assembly and do not want people removing small parts from it that will make the door incomplete.

The wrecking yards in the area attempted to be helpful and suggested visiting bodyshops and the ford dealer parts department to get the needed parts. None of the bodyshops I visited happened to have any mangled crown vic rear doors in stock at the moment. The parts department personnel at the ford dealer had never heard of a "rear door enable kit" and told me i'd have to order each part individually. Finally, I managed to locate a complete kit of parts from another individual. But since I had already begun compiling a list of the needed parts for the rear door, I decided to complete the list in hopes that it would be useful to other police interceptor owners that desired to make their interior rear door handles operative.

Below is a diagram of the rear door and the parts inside it. The numbers besides each part in the diagram are called by a few different names including: "basic number","short number", and "callout code". For example every model year of a given car will have the same callout code for the interior door panel, when the parts person at the dealership enters the callout code, he will be prompted to enter the model year of the vehicle and the color of the interior. After entering the required data, a part number will be provided and the parts person can check for avaliability of the part in the warehouse and if needed special order the part from ford.



Note:
LH = Drivers Side
RH = Passengers Side

Part Number	Description	Year	Year	Suggested Retail March 2009
F2AZ-54264B14-A	Bellcrank and Link Asy - RH - Rear Door Chrome Door Lock Button	1992	1998	$26.32
F2AZ-54264B15-A	Bellcrank and Link Asy - LH - Rear Door Chrome Door Lock Button	1992	1998	$26.32
XW7Z-54264B14-AA	Bellcrank and Link Asy - RH - Rear Door	1999	1999	Obsolete
XW7Z-54264B15-AA	Bellcrank and Link Asy - LH - Rear Door	1999	1999	Obsolete
YW7Z-54264B14-AA	Bellcrank and Link Asy - RH - Rear Door Black Door Lock Button	2000	2009	$18.43
YW7Z-54264B15-AA	Bellcrank and Link Asy - LH - Rear Door Black Door Lock Button	2000	2009	$18.43
1W7Z-5426448-AA	Bushing - Latch Bellcrank- RH - Rear Door Supercedes: F00Z-5426648-A & F2AZ-5426448-A	1992	2009	$10.52
1W7Z-5426448-AA	Bushing - Latch Bellcrank - LH - Rear Door Supercedes: F00Z-5426648-A & F2AZ-5426448-A	1992	2009	$10.52
F5AZ-5426442-AA	Latch Remote Control Link - RH - Rear Door For use with 1992-2002 interior door handles Supercedes: F2AZ-5426442-A	1992	2002	$13.42
F5AZ-5426443-AA	Latch Remote Control Link - LH - Rear Door For use with 1992-2002 interior door handles Supercedes: F2AZ-5426443-A	1992	2002	$13.42
5W7Z-5426442-A	Latch Remote Control Link - RH - Rear Door For use with 2003+ interior door handles Supercedes: 3W7Z-5426442-AA	2003	2009	$12.42
5W7Z-5426443-A	Latch Remote Control Link - LH - Rear Door For use with 2003+ interior door handles Supercedes: 3W7Z-5426443-AA	2003	2009	$12.42
N808594-S100	1/4" "Peel Rivet" Rivet M6.4 x 14.75 Blind Oval “Peel-Type” Rivet Diameter: 1/4" Grip: 1/8"-5/16" Flange Diameter: 5/8" Aluminum Rivet Steel Mandrel (Zinc & Yellow) Ford Door Lock Actuator Supercedes: N802034-SG & N808594-S
6W7Z-5426412-B	Latch Asy - RH - Rear Door Supercedes: F2AZ-5426412-A F5AZ-5426412-A F5AZ-5426412-AD 3W7Z-5426412-AA 3W7Z-5426413-AB 5W7Z-5426412-AA 5W7Z-5426412-AB 6W7Z-5426412-A	1992	2009	$32.98
6W7Z-5426413-B	Latch Asy - LH - Rear Door Supercedes: F2AZ-5426413-A F5AZ-5426413-A F5AZ-5426413-AD 3W7Z-5426413-AA 3W7Z-5426413-AB 5W7Z-542613-AA 5W7Z-5426413-AB 6W7Z-5426413-A	1992	2009	$32.50

Note: Rear door parts for "box body" crown vics prior to the 1992 model year, are now "obsolete" and no longer avaliable from ford. But with some effort, you should be able to locate a set of used "preowned" rods from a salvage yard vic. If you are unable to locate the parts locally, you might try the online junkyard search engine at http://www.car-part.com

Pictures of the parts:

(click on any of the photos below to enlarge them)

Here's the bag of parts that ford places in the trunk on crown vic p71's ordered with the rear doors inoperative. Am not sure which model year of vehicle these rods came from, but it's definetly a 1999 or later as the lock knobs are black in color. 1998 and prior vehicles had chrome lock knobs.





Take note that the end of the rods have colored paint on the end them. The two red rods form a pair which fits one door, the two green form a pair which fits the door on the other side of the car. In the connecting rod set pictured below, the green connecting rods are for the drivers side rear door . The red connecting rods are for the passengers side rear door.

(Be warned: some years have been rumoured to have the color coding scheme reversed. i.e. red is the drivers side, green is the passengers side)







The "peel rivets" shown below have a unique design which distributes the load over a wider surface area than a conventional rivet. Without the bushings to the right installed on the door, the bellcrank will scrape and bind on the door shell.



Required Tools:

#1 Phillips Screwdriver (For door panel screws)
#3 Phillips Screwdriver (For door latch screws)
Small Flat Blade Screwdriver (To remove door trim)
Electric Drill and Punch or Flat Blade Screwdriver (To remove power lock actuator from door)
Large 1/4" Rivet Gun (Some people have used nuts and bolts, but they can work themselves loose over time even if "loctite" or a similar product is used)

For size comparison, the 1/4" rivet gun from http://www.harborfreight.com that was used for the installation of the connecting rods is placed in front of the rear door. Note that the rivet gun and the rivets used for this job are not the common hardware store variety.



Before and after pictures of my door:

Before without the rods installed



After with the connecting rods installed, but without the handle present



Installation:

Installing the two connecting rods in each door may appear to be a quick and easy procedure at a quick glance. But after the interior door panel is removed, and the installation of the rods is actually attempted you'll start to think otherwise. To maneuver the rods into the mounting points on the latch, the latch has to be removed from the door. Which means that the door lock actuator has to be pulled along with removing the exterior door handle rod from the latch. Also have to contend with the 3 big phillips screws, anything smaller than a #3 phillips screwdriver will likely just slip around the fastener and not turn it.

If you get frustrated enough that you want to abort the project without finishing it or run out of time in the middle of the job, leave the door panel off and remove all the linkage rods from the latch. Then place the latch back inside the door and install the three screws that hold it in place. None of the door handles will open the door after it is closed, but the doors will stay shut and not go flying open while your driving along the road. When you desire to complete the project, you'll be able to open the door by laying on the back seat and lifting the linkage connector on the latch. Do not install the door panel until the linkage rods are connected to the latch as there may be no effective way to open the door without damaging the door panel.

Removing the door panel: (1995 and later vics only)

Here's the drivers side rear door panel with the power window switch and door handle trim cup already removed.



To remove the trim cup, place a small flat blade screwdriver slot on the top of the trim and pry downwards while pulling the cup away from the door





The power window switch trim panel is retained to the door using friction clips. To remove the window trim panel from the door, place a screwdriver in between the window switch trim panel and the door panel and pry upwards. After the window switch panel is removed, there is a phillips screw to remove. There is also another phillips screw towards the back of the door down low.



After all the screws are removed, lift the panel upwards and take it off the door shell. Keep in mind there may be year to year variations in the panel retaining hardware, so if the panel won't move, look for additional fasteners that have been previously overlooked.

Note that 1995 and later crown vics do not use "friction clips" to retain the door panel to the door shell. If a friction clip removal tool or a prybar is placed in between the door panel and the door shell in an attempt to remove the non-existant friction clips, door panel damage will likely result.







Removing the weather barrier:

After the door panel is removed from the door shell, the weather barrier will become visible.



To access the door internals, the weather barrier will have to be peeled from the metal door shell. If the plastic starts to tear, a hair dryer may be useful to soften the glue.



Installing the parts:

The bellcrank bushing is installed to the right of the oval shaped hole.



Install the bushing this way with the small portion facing outwards



DO NOT install the bushing as shown below. The large part of the bushing should face towards the inside of the door shell, not outwards.



Below is a picture of the door with the bellcrank bushing installed



To give a rough idea of where the rods will run inside the door, I used masking tape to temporarily retain the lock rod to the door shell.



Same as the above picture, but the interior door handle rod has been added to the picture



Remove the three screws which retain the latch to the door shell. Anything smaller than a number three phillips screwdriver will likely just slip around the fastener without turning it.

If the screws are misplaced while they are out of the door, do not substitute common hardware store variety fasteners to retain the latch to the vehicle. The latch fasteners absorb significant amounts of energy during a vehicle crash, and using improper fasteners will adversly effect the crash rating of the vehicle.



The door lock actuator is retained to the door using a 3 sided clip. One side of the clip attaches to the door shell, the other two squeeze against the actuator mounting studs to keep it in place. To remove the latch, the actuator has to be detached from the door. Can pry the actuator from the bracket, but be careful not to damage the protective rubber boot. Alternatively, one can drill out the rivet which retains the bracket assembly to the door.



Below is a picture of the door latch and the lock actuator removed from the door. The exterior door handle rod will pry out of the latch attachment point after the yellow part of the attachment point in unclipped.

There are two electrical connections to the door latch to disconnect as well, both are for the door ajar switch. One is the actual door ajar switch connection, the other is a grounding terminal (the door hinges do not provide a reliable ground path).



Below are a couple pictures of the door latch removed from the vehicle. Take note of the "child safety" mechanism, that selectively allows the vehicle operator to make the interior rear door handles inoperative.









In the picture below, the rod that connects the interior door handle to the latch is installed incorrectly. To correct this situation, one should remove the connecting rod from the latch and install the opposite end of the rod into the latch.



All the needed rods except the one for the exterior door handle are installed on the latch shown below



A closeup photo of the connections shown above is pictured below.



Finally, it's time to put the components back inside the door and rivet them into place.



Before reinstalling the door panel, make sure that:

• All handles and knobs (both interior and exterior) work as they should
  
• The domelight turns on when the door is opened. If not, closely inspect the two connectors for the door ajar switch to make sure they are properly connected
• The power lock actuator works properly when the switch is pressed on one of the front doors
• Nothing is obstructing the path of the window when it moves
  

The passengers side door:

The passengers side is basically a mirror image of the drivers side door.





The picture below is what the passenger's side door looks like with the drivers side rods installed in it. I even went so far as to rivet the improper rods into place. After realizing the mistake, I used an electric drill to remove the rivet and pulled the latch out of the door to install the proper parts.

Note that with the wrong set of connecting rods installed, the lock knob on the top of the door behaves reversed from what it should. The lock knob on the top front of the door is in the "up" position when locked. And in the "down" position when unlocked.



If you're observant in the above photograph, you'll notice that one of the attachment points doesn't lineup properly with the wrong lock rod installed in the door. Below is a couple pictures of that attachment point with the proper rod installed.





Below is a picture of the proper rods installed inside the door. The rod attached to the door shell using masking tape is the one for the door on the opposite side of the car.



A picture with all the rods properly installed



And finally, it's time to put door panel back on. The only visible difference in this picture from before the project was started is that the door now has a lock knob on it.



And if it is found desirable to make the doors so that they cannot be opened from the inside, one can flip the "child safety" lever





If you are of the appropriate age and are in a "wet" area of the united states, you might also consider purchasing the items shown below before attempting the door rod installation project.




Questions or comments?

email me: [email protected]