When the tab on a door lock button broke despite considerable care, I investigated a bodge to jam the two parts back. In my assorted paper clip box, I found item 1, used by scribes and shysters to clip pages of writs together. To experiment, I cut off a length of the strip. It turned out to be thin enough to slide between the button and the inner plastic piece. The material is pretty soft, and I bent up the clip shown in 2 with a view to getting dimensions for a better version in something more springy.
You can see in 3 how it clips on, and it is completely retained when assembled into the main part of the button. When I tried it, it turned out to have just enough spring to work. I fitted it to the car, see 4, and it seems secure. It would be possible to bend it out a bit more with a watchmaker’s screwdriver if you want to be quite sure.
It works just like the original tab, but it is much more straightforward to remove the button when necessary.
Fred
