Please Note: My written explanation, my attached photo, and video show how to get the door open WITHOUT TAKING THE DOOR PANEL APART OR OFF, which can be difficult if your door won’t open.

In North Dakota during the last week of October 2023, there was a sudden snow storm that lasted several days, with temperatures as low as 10 degrees Fahrenheit, and more than one foot of snow accumulation.

When I went outside to my 1992 Toyota Landcruiser to sweep the snow off of it, unlock it, start it, let it warm up and defrost, I found that both the driver’s-side and passenger-side doors were frozen shut at the door seals. In order to get the driver’s-side door open, I cupped my fingers up underneath the door handle all the way to the hinge, pulled very hard, and I broke something inside the door.

I soon found that this driver’s-side door would no longer unlock & open from the outside or inside, no matter what I tried. I got my heat-gun out in order to thaw out all of the doors and door locks, but eventually I had to get in through the passenger door, and climb over the center console to get into the driver’s seat.

I looked on the internet for “1992 Toyota Landcruiser door won’t unlock”. There were two sources that helped me the most, one was a 20-minute YouTube video from a man in Texas who very methodically took apart his driver’s-side rear door, that would open to begin with. This video gives you an idea of how each of the door-levers and door-locks are connected to rods, and how each of these rods push or pull on levers at the latch/lock mechanism. https://youtu.be/V7_QtHY7BBo?si=a8QAr-FihNvb3Kpq

The second helpful source, was a particular “thread” on the “IH8MUD” Toyota Landcruiser group, that showed still-photos of the individual door-levers and door-rods at the latch/lock mechanism on front doors. You probably should refer to both the 20-minute YouTube video, and the IH8MUD Toyota Landcruiser group still-photographs in order to understand the movement of the levers, locks, rods, and latch/lock mechanism. https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/door-locked-wont-open-how-to-fix.203423/

I am not going to try to explain all of the reasons why, but what it all comes down to, in most of the “door won’t open” scenarios, it was because there is a small $0.50 spring that broke, which connects one of the lever mechanisms to another at the latch/lock mechanism.

However, I was not going to take my door apart, for three reasons. 1) The driver’s door would not open, it would be extremely difficult for me to reach all of the screws in the door panel while the door was closed. 2) I wanted to cut a permanent hatch into the door panel so that I would ALWAYS be able to reach inside and release the door latch by hand if necessary. 3) I have a 2nd Toyota Landcruiser with a wiggly, loose driver’s door panel and switches because this door panel was taken apart in the past, I don’t want this to happen again to my driver’s door.

Please refer to my included photo and my video below to show where and how large I cut my hatch into the driver’s-side door panel using a rotary dremel tool with a cutting wheel. The outer fabric cut cleanly. Underneath the outer fabric was a kind of industrial cardboard about 1/8″ thick. No metal was cut.

Once I cut this hatch, I used my memory of the aforementioned still-photos from IH8MUD and YouTube video to feel around for where each of the rods were located. I pushed and pulled on each of these rods, while watching the movement of the outside door handle, inside door handle, outside lock, inside lock button.

Eventually I saw and found, that there is a lower lever attached to the bottom end of the outside door handle rod, you will see that this lever on the outside of the latch/lock mechanism, it is supposed to stay “up” when the inside lock button is unlocked, but due to a broken spring, you have to hold this lever up, push the lock button to unlock, continue holding the lever up while you pull the inside door handle to open the door.

This may not sound like much of an accomplishment, but it was to me, because I did not have to take apart my door panel, and this was the only way that I could get my driver’s-side door to open. Once I found this solution, the lever that I need to hold up is easy to see, and easy to reach. As long as you do not lock the driver’s door, and leave the driver’s door lock button in the unlocked position, the door will open normally using the outside door handle and the inside door handle.