I tried to open my rear passenger sided door that was frozen shut and the door handle popped off. It doesn't appear that it is broken. Do I need to take apart the door to put it back together? There are two ***** one one end that appear to be the pivot point and a rectangle opening that looks like a metal piece goes inside it, like a bolt thru a washer...

Any suggestions

 

Welcome to the forum.

IIRC, the handles are held on by screws/bolts from the inside which would necessitate removal of the door panel. You'll also probably need a new handle as unless the bolts broke, the threads are probably stripped out of the old one. I suppose you could use a heli-coil to repair them or epoxy. Check gmpartsdirect.com to see how much a new handle costs.

There was a report earlier that some of the handles got over-torqued upon assembled and started the failure mechanism.