My doors are hard to close, they take a lot of force to make a nice seal. This coupled with my probably overly aggressive manner of closing them has caused me to go through many door handles in my time. I started using the YJ stock handles but after going through a few of those, I decided to try the TJ handles, they gave way even faster. The YJ door handles are thin strip of metal cover in a pleather substance for grip. The TJ are all rubber but they are much thicker. I have gone a year without a handle on the passenger side, the window has to be rolled down to close the door. On the driver side it has been cracking for just about as long. The day finally came when the handle broke, again, and I then realized it was time I finally did something about it.

It turned out to be easy enough to fix. All it took was a piece of flat steel 1/8" thick x 3/4" wide. I made measurements of the old handles, measured them out onto the flat, heated, bent, painted. I bought a pair of bicycle grips to put in the middle section. I sometimes use the inside handle as an arm rest when I drive, also to make it little more comfortable when shutting the door, and I think it makes it look a little more complete. If you are using heat to bend the metal you can put the grips on afterward, they are flexible enough to slide over the bends. This way you won't have try and heat your metal while trying to avoid the grip in the way. This was also a good time to replace the annoying torx screws with a more common philips head. A 10-24 screw is a perfect match, I bought 3/4" long. When this project was completed I was happy with the end result. I am pretty sure these handles are going to last me a very long time.