Repairing driver's door handle, door vapour barrier and door card fixings

Wolf Spider said:

My Defender is a 1996 90 CSW 300Tdi.

The driver's interior door handle has always been a bit 'flappy' and ceased being effective a few months ago. As I suspected, it's fixings are slotted and these were loose meaning that the rod that the handle operates is not 'tight' to the door catch (it has play in it). The plastic 'nutserts' (part MWC1950, I think) that hold the door handle assembly to the door seem to be stripped and therefore incapable of holding the handle mechanism tight (and effective). YRM seem to do some reasonable replacements (£2.95 + VAT for 10).
Question 1: Does anyone have any advice (other than straight replacement) for the most effective repair?

Several of the 'fir tree' door card clips are broken. These appear available on eBay (I won't use eBay for critical parts, but I'm not fussy about trim if it looks correct). However, I'm not sure how the white part (the part in the door card that the black 'fir trees' clip into) is fixed in the door card.
Question 2: Does anyone have any advice etc.?

The vapour barrier (which is really just a polythene sheet) is tatty, so I'm thinking of replacing it with some heavy duty builder's polythene with either new butyl strip or gaffer tape.
Question 3: Does anyone have any experience/advice etc?

I was planning to change the door locks and I plan to drill a hole in the steel panel that holds the window regulator ( a 'trick' from the guy from Britannia Restorations on YouTube) in order to undo the screw directly without removing the window regulator panel assembly.
Question 4: Does anyone have any words of advice, or warning?

Thanks all.

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meego said:

1/ Those little plastic inserts are readily available and are easy to change. Buy a bag of them as they are used throughout the vehicle.
2/ The white part is set into the door card and i dont think they can be renewed. The black fir tree part slots on to the white part and are readily available on ebay.
3/ Your suggestion will work fine, but is it really needed ??
4/ Drill the hole as advised. It works a treat.

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Wolf Spider said:

Thank you for your comments @meego
.... Just the sort of useful comments that I was hoping for.

2/ I had thought that the white component in the packs of clips offered on eBay were the part that the black fir tree clips onto on the door card (the white 'stud'). Of course, they are actually the 'female' part that is fixed to the door! My error!
I have a couple of these white studs that are broken. I have seen the guy from Britannia Restorations (on YouTube) insert a cap-head self-tapping screw into the door card to hold the fir tree clip where the original white component has broken. Now I understand why he fixed it that way.

3/ Probably not. My thinking was simply: the original vapour barrier is tatty (it's been removed, in part, before and has ripped holes) so return it to its original intended state and function at low cost.

There are a couple of cracked areas on the door card - presumably caused when the card has been 'pulled off' in the past, rather than using a trim tool to lever it off. I assume the best way to repair these is with some fibreglass mat.

Thanks again.

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