I can't seem to get the drivers side front door latch to work reliably.

It's as if the external handle doesn't have enough travel to make the front latch work correctly.

If I adjust the links so that there is no pre-load on the front or rear latches, and adjust the external handle cable so there is no slack, then everything works fine from the internal handle, but the external handle won't reliably release the front latch.

If I shorten the front link so that the external handle releases the front latch consistently then there is enough pre-load on the front latch that it won't always unlock.

If I fiddle with it a lot I can get it so that is appears to work correctly, but sometime later, usually after a large temperature change, it will fail in one of the ways described above.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks