door handles

[ewic]

I have broken two or three door handles in the past few years (exterior, the chrome ones). I used to buy replacements on e-bay, but they have gotten expensive as of late. The real problem is that the exterior door handles are poorly designed, and the cheap pot metal snaps when you hang more than one X-mas tree ornament on it. Has anyone come up with a solution? Do any other Porsche or VW handles fit onto the outside of a 914 door? Is there a way to update the handle with chrome-moly steel?
Thanks, Eric in Virginia

[Piledriver]

AutoAtlanta makes repro handles (and IIRC components to fix yours) that are allegedly better material than the 30 year old OEM versions, although I have not used a set myself.

The original design had issues, nice stress risers and thin cross sections that when combined with pot metal and many years of use gives the expected results.

AFAIK short of a full custom door handle graft from another vehicle, AFAIK Pelican Parts (OEM or used) AA or ebay/etc are the choices.
(I'm actually considering the graft option as the Pile needs so much work)

[ewic]

I used Auto Atlanta part to replace the handle. Definitely the way to go. I couldn't see paying 300 bucks for new old stock - just to have it break again. I should have bought the metric pin from autoatlanta instead of using a 1/4" pin from the auto parts store. Thanks for the tip.