I'd be willing to bet that the door handle is not all that OK.

The way these wear out, the fingers that lift the latch rod can not fully work due to excessive wear on a pin or the casting of the handle itself.

Unless you've had the assembly out of the door to look at it, it's hard to judge that it's OK.

The poor man's fix is to steal the good handle out of the rear door. That leaves you with a possibly non functional backup plan. I'd try to pull a rear driver's door handle from a junkyard car or buy one off someone here.

Sooner or later they all wear out.

--Rob
--
89 244GL Turbo // 92 244 M47 \\ 90 745T // 76 242 Convertible