Broken door semi-fixed

My friend Dave K will be happy to hear this. :)

A couple of weeks before moving away from Hawaii, the driver's side rear door of my Honda Civic decided it didn't want to open from the outside anymore, regardless of whether or not it was locked. A lot of times I would give my friends rides to our many different adventures around the island, and so this was a small source of frustration since no one could enter through that door, and everyone would forget.

So one day, not putting much thought into it, Dave tried changing the setting of the child safety lock on that door (you could still open it from the inside), to see if it would help. But as soon as he shut the door he realized his mistake - now the door wouldn't open at all! But who cares, it didn't stop us from having fun adventures. :)

That was almost three months ago. After moving, it took a month and a half before we even saw the car again. Then it took another month for me to get all the paperwork straightened out so that I could drive the car legally in New Jersey. Now that I can use it again, it seemed like the right time to reinstall my roof rack, which I had removed in July for shipping along with all of our household items.

Problem. How was I going to install the rear bar of the roof rack if I couldn't open the door??

All I can say is, it's a good thing we have a George Foreman Grill. They come with these nice, flexible, thin, plastic scrapers for removing grilled-on gunk.

Turns out those George Foreman Grill scrapers are also good for slipping in between the shut door of a car and the door's frame, and sliding up to disengage child safety locks!

So now my car has a roof rack again, and therefore is easy to spot in crowded parking lots!

I still can't open the door from the outside. But that'll be a different project for a different day. Or maybe a different year. Or better yet, a different owner. ;)