I bought a 1988 Camaro V6 about three weeks ago as a project car. They told me straight out that the door on the passengers' side doesn't open. I figured I could fix it so it wasn't a big deal.

Today I've been working on the door and I partially took off the door panel so I could reach in and hopefully pop it open. After a bit of tinkering I got it open by manually popping the latch. Just to see what would happen, I shut the door again and it opened up by just opening the handle.

Figuring it was just some weird phenomenon, I reassembled the door panel and locked it up. Later, I went back out, unlocked the door, but it wouldn't open again. I redid what I did earlier and reopened the door manually. I tested to see if locking the car and unlocking the car caused this issue, and sure enough that was the case.

I had to tell the story, sorry. What issue am I working with here? And what would I most likely have to do to solve the issue?

 

Could be the part of the latch that locks and unlocks it wearing out. Lot of times the latch will have a lever that moves another lever and one or both will get a worn spot in them and one will not fully move the other