Part between door lock and door latch - retention and orientation

[elav]

Hello, I have a '98 Boxster and when I first got it I replaced the door latch in the driver's door. Thing have been working great for 1/2 a year and then I could no longer lock the door with the key. I ripped open the door and found the spade bit (see picture).




My questions are...

• What is the easiest way to put this back in? Remove the door latch or remove the outer handel?
• What orientation does this go? It looks like the part that goes into the door handle is slightly offset to the blade.
• Is there some type of retaining clip that keeps this blade in the door handle? I see a hole in the square section too.

[elav]

I removed the inner support for the driver's handle (2x 10mm nuts and disconnect the arm between the door handle and the latch mechanism). The lock stays with this inner part. It looks like as long as the blade is in the up/down orientation, it isn't handed. I found a bit of a piece of plastic that may have been a retention thing - but it is gone. So I think I'm going to add a cotter pin to hold this in place. I hope this helps someone else.

Update - after adding a cotter pin I did find a small fastener and a plastic bit stuck in one of the holes. My guess is that this fastener is the "pin" and it screws into the plastic bit (like a thread lock nut). Anyway it would have been too much work to remove the cotter pin at that point.