Freelander 1 Rear doors not opening from outside.

Hi Guys, I have recently bought a really cheap 1998 freelander. Plan to fix a few things on it and use it as a 4x4 to chuck the kids and dog in and not worry about damaging it.

One issue is that both rear doors dont open from the outside, which is obviously an MOT failure. Any ideas?

have had a look behind the door cards and the outside handles themselves seem to be hooked in with the bars but they dont seem to open the doors.

One of them kinda works SOMETIMES and if i slightly push the door in at the same time as pulling the handle it seems to open most times but the other one never works. Both rear doors open from inside. Thanks!

Mine did the same and was as simple as the operating rods had pulled out of the crank shape just a bit.

Try operating the actual mech where the door handle rod goes. If that works remove the rods and effectively shorten them a bit by reshaping the bends. Only a few mm.