door won't open

my drivers door latch seems to be broken, or at least jammed shut. neither the inside or outside handle seems to do any good. any suggestions on how to get the thing open, preferbyl with little to no damage to the door? 87 cherokee.

do you have manual or electric locks

It's very possible that simply the plastic release on the door lock is not releases due to grease / dirt buildup.

This just happened to me on two doors. By moving the inside lock level back back and forth several times I was able to get one door open. The other I also used hot water on the latch. Of course if it's below freezing where you are the water may create an added problem.

Kent

electric, i've worked the manual part back and forth a lot. i can hear the lock moving in the latch, but the handle has no resistance on the inside, and the outside just goes all the way in without releasing anything.

Roll into a warm garage over night and try it in the morning. If not, then take out the seat and take off the door panel to access the linkages. Sometimes cycling the door lock several times will clear it up!

both the outside and inside linkage rods hook up to a laych release armitage. You may have to pull the latch assm. out to see that the latch armatage is not broken off it's pivot point. I just had mine out 2 weeks ago and can't remember exactly the set up but they were filthy. soaked them in a mild degreaser and relubed them. now if I can only find the those damn key way linkage rods...

I know this is a bit of an old post, but I'm in the same boat. The door is fully closed, and there doesn't seem to be any way to open it. When trying to unlock the doors, there is resistence right before you reach the fully unlocked position. I've man handled the linkages inside the door. I've lubed everything I can reach, and worked it every which way. I've even tried poking and proding things with screwdrivers. Nothing seems to open this thing.

Does anyone know if there is a way to get the door open? The car is kind of a beater, so I'm not too concerned about getting the locks to work, I just don't want to have to keep getting in and out from the passenger side.

BTW, this is a 92 with power locks.