Rear door latch removal

[Devin]

I'm trying to get my rear driver side door latch off, but I can't figure out how to remove the various rods from the latch. There are three that I can see. The power door lock, the interior handle linkage and the lock plunger. My latch is so stiff I actually broke the exterior handle off so I need to do something to loosen it up again.

Any thoughts on how to remove the rods from the plastic clips?

 

[sperold]

This might horrify you, but I would remove the rear door panel, take a zip grinder and cut a window on the inner door panel where you need, - do the fix, - tab the opening, - and put the cut out piece back in with screws. You will be able to see what you are doing if you do this.
You will badly cut your hands and arms fishing around in the door interior, there are a lot of unfinished, jagged edges in there, and you will hit them all.

 

[Devin]

I did it without cutting the door apart, but it was a pain in the butt and at one point it did bite me. I'll post the process I used once I'm done.

 

[Devin]

Here are the guts


Here's the contributing factor to why my latch stiffness issue, which culminated in the door handle breaking:



So I cut off a coil and a half of the spring to reduce the tension. This part is used in the child lock assembly. I'm not sure why the stiffness occurred, as it is very unlikely the spring is stiffer than when it was installed, but apparently the whole system has been affected, so I just weakened the part I could get to.