The rear, drivers side door rods for the inside opening handle and lock **** both rusted completely through on my 95 SE. The car has a lot of miles (193K), but has always been garaged and is in decent shape for a 13 1/2 year old car.

I figured out a fairly easy way to repair (without replacing) both rods, but was wondering if anyone else has had these rods rust out.

 

No...only you.

 

hmmmm

i dont know about that
but my read doors, no matter how much grease i've put on the rod's... they are still sorta stiff/and make a sandpaper/grinding almost noise when opened. immediately after i put some grease they were better but it came back

 

You did not type anything.

 

that means you need more friends if your rear doors are stiff and grind/squeek as you open them

 

pics would explain it. I have no idea where your talking

 

These are the two horizontal rods that run the length of the door (hidden by the door trim, of course), connecting the opening handle and lock **** with the actual door lock assembly. FSM calls them the inside handle and lock **** rods - pretty descriptive, actually.

I never thought twice about them until the door stopped opening or locking/unlocking from the inside, and I realized the rods were totally disintegrated (detached) from rusting out.

 

You must have water sitting inside your door then.

 

These are the 2 door rods that rusted through on my 95 SE recently:

 

And this was the repair (just wondered if anyone else had a similar problem in their doors):



(oh yeah - thanks to one of our friendly moderators, Kevlo, for explaining to me how to post pics)

 

You might be getting water in there through your window seals.

 

Sorry for reviving old thread.
I had the same issue with my rear passenger door. The opening rod had completely rusted through 2 years ago and the locking rod was holding by a thread. I ordered the opening rod at Nissan for $17 and replaced it last week - took me a very long time to put back the actuator and the door handle (I had to fish the small door handle rod into the actuator's hole). In the process the locking handle broke completely and I took it out. Now I have to order that one and do everything all over again. If I had seen this thread with the ingenious fix, I would have saved lots of time + money.