how to open your door when neither handle works

My recently acquired 2003 Honda Accord EX 4 cyl had a faulty door lock actuator in the front passenger side door.  Here is a run down of what I did wrong in case you find yourself in a similiar situation.

Shopping for door lock actuators - Prices go from around $10 to over $40. I mistakenly ordered a pair of door lock actuators ($20 for left and right) for a coupe and received 2 black actuators that were not sized correctly for my 4 door sedan which has smaller white actuators.

I did not discover the problem until after I had the door panel off and the actuator removed from the door latch assembly. It was hot, the flies were landing on me and drinking my sweat and I just wanted to button the door back up and stay cool inside so I searched for the closest parts store that had the part in stock and went there to buy it for $45. (I did return the 2 wrong parts but did not get a full refund, but I'm ok with that...$16 back in my pocket is better than $0)

Reassembling the door latch assembly - A critical mistake that I made while integrating the new door lock actuator into the door latch assembly was that I failed to ensure the actuator was properly installed. Without the actuator sitting on that metal tab there was too much play in the latching mechanism that prevented the door from opening from the inside or the outside.

2003 honda accord door latch assembly #1

Failure to double check the latch mechanism before closing the door - Since I was rushing to get inside the house, I failed to test the door lock function prior to closing the door.  I was in such a hurry that I didn't even try the door until the next morning.  I had no idea how to get the door open without access to the latching mechanism but I reasoned that the door panel would get damaged one way or another so I removed the 3 fasteners and the molding behind the mirror and managed to pull the panel off, only breaking a few pieces that I was able to glue back into place with some 5 minute epoxy and some creative use of bailing wire to hold parts together.

2003 honda accord latch closed

How to work the latch? OK even though I now had access to the latch I still didn't know how to make it work so the door would open.  The only videos on the Internet were for older models which had a very different mechanism involving some hard to reach pin.  I could have disassembled the driver side door to get an understanding of how the door latch works, but I didn't want to accidentally mess up another door and not be able to use the car at all. I ended up locating a used latch assembly on eBay and $65 later it was sitting on my door.  None of the local junk yards had any accords in stock so it seemed like a reasonable cost of repair. Hopefully I can sell it and get some money back.

2003 honda accord latch opened

Door latch in hand - After I received the latch assembly in the mail, I fiddled with it and quickly found an easy way to release the latch.  Grab the rod coming from the outside door handle and forcibly push down until the bracket moves to the end of the range of motion.  The door must be unlocked for the latch to release.  Since my actuator was a little floppy, I had to work the door lock cable as well as the inside door handle a few times before I got the door open.  Success never felt so good after more than a week of dreading life with an inoperative front passenger door.

Reassembly - Reassembling the door seemed to be full of gotchas since I had to remove the door panel 3 times to get it working properly.  1st time: I forgot to affix the latch to the door panel on the inside door handle (in addition to the pivoting piece at the end of the cable, there is also a "dent" to secure the cable at the end of the cable sheath). 2nd time: I forgot to plug the electrical connections into the actuator.  3rd time: the door latch dent needed to be re-secured because the inside handle was not working.  Each time I made sure the latch action was working before I closed the door.  Live and learn.  The main theme here is you have to be patient. Take care to reattach everything and don't rush.