1985-1998 [Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
Bruce - -
My experience is mainly rear doors, I still have the front latches to do on my car but both are working okay, though passenger side lags sometimes.
These mechanisms have a lot of sliding contact surfaces, and rotating parts that have a broad bearing surface, on phosphate-treated steel finished parts that have a hefty corrosion on them, plus hardened and dried out lubricant.
To get things moving you not only have to get lube on just the right areas but work things thoroughly as you lube, till they move free. Best done with latch works out of door.
What happens is the parts that should move when you work door button or when lock servo-motor pushes or pulls, get so stiff they stall the motor. (Also the central locking module also can go on the fritz, but if other doors are working the central module is probably still okay.)
To get latch works out, there are 3 T-40 Torx bolts in the external latch plate assembly. Then a small Phillips screw underneath that.
(That external latching piece should swing, latch, and unlatch easily. It might benefit from some thin lube worked in till it moves freely. Latching tongue swings in till it clicks closed, other part, swung, should release latch tongue to pop back to open position.)
There are two electric connectors to the latch works to unplug, one to drive the latch motor, one to the blue magnetic reed switch that tells the pictogram if the door is latched or not. And there's a black push-the-pin-through rivet thingy that holds part of it to the sheet metal of the door. Maybe something else but not sure - - wire zip ties to snip?
Last, and this could be tricky, there's a rod that links the latch works to the key cylinder in the external latch handle. It has a plastic poppet fitting on the end that pops onto a ball on the back of the lock cylinder. This is almost impossible to see. On my one experience inside a front door, to harvest the outside handle works, this popped off on its own before I could figure it out. Nothing broke. Reattaching it I think you have to work blind, visualizing what your fingers are doing. The plastic end pops apart and then clips together over the ball.
With latch out and on the bench you can give it a thorough freeing up. What's making your trouble is only one part of it but you'll find other things that should move free that will be kind of stiff too.
My experience comes from my back doors except that I harvested the front door handles off a junkyard car and paid attention to the setup. I think everything is about the same front and back except for the link to the key cylinder.
You can leave the outer handles on the doors; they have a wire that runs down through a guide that gets it down around the back edge of the window glass without damage. That wire tells central locking if the key has been turned. The handles, plus that guide, are kind of a pain to remove if not needed. (10mm-head bolt in end of door, ditto into front end of handle from inside door, plus two 10mm-head bolts into that guide, also through end of door. Pay attention to how white wire runs.) But they do have a feature, the nylon roller that pushes on the latchworks to open the door, that could stand to be lubed. It's on the end of an L-shaped piece of pot metal. It needs to roll free for easiest door opening, and it seizes up. Squirt some oil up onto it and work it with your fingers.
The latchworks as I said has lots of sliding contact. I did quite a bit of moving-parts-through-their-paces as I dripped fresh oil onto things, before I was happy with mine.
On reassembly, you have to have the external latch plate in its LATCHED position as you bolt it up, for one of the little pegs off it to meet the nylon arm that moves the metal part that signals the door-latched reed switch. Otherwise the pictogram will not show the door open. You can see the arc-shaped slot the skinniest peg goes into, in the end of the door. Right inside that is the nylon arm on the latch works; peg needs to fit inside slot in that arm.
(After reassembly, before slamming door, open latch tongue by either outer or inner door handle.)
Have fun.
posted by 72.73.7...
, Thu, 12 Feb 2009 08:39:34
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