Hoping someone has a solution for my problem with a stuck door lock on my recently acquired 1972 clubman project car. The car has been sitting in the weather for many years but the body is remarkably straight and the interior quite well sealed from the weather.

The proble is that the driver side door won't open and the handle/actuator rods and actuator bracket are missing (as part of the previous owner either trying to fix it and failed, or part of a partial stripping down of the interior), therefore I thought it would be an easy task to open it from the inside by looking at how the other door (that is working) operates. So I used a screw driver to push up the slide in the door striker unit to the open position and I checked that the lock was in the unlocked position, but I still cant get the door open. I've used plenty of WD40 and some force thinking that maybe the door was sealed against the rubbers and it might be just stuck from grime and time, but I risk breaking the panels if I use any more force.

So I'm hoping someone might have solved this problem before and will please share their knowledge as I'm stumped!

Thanks in advance.
Beery