mr_ed
Toolbag
I know this door lock issue has been dealt with several places, such as here, but I figured I'd add my own write-up as the others are short on pictures. I just finished this repair following the instructions, and it's pretty straightforward. It sure is nice being able to unlock the Monty without utilizing the "trick to it."
The vehicle is a 97 LS with 180k miles. The symptom was whenever you tried to unlock the vehicle, either by hitting the button on the inside or using the key, the rig would unlock itself and then intantly re-lock itself.
I followed the instructions linked to above and sure enough, my actuator motor's little rubber bumpstops had indeed turned to black cream cheese. This was allowing the locking arm quadrant to overthrow itself, overunning the microswitches and causing the motor to freak out back to the locked position. After I removed the motor and popped the cover off (and cutting myself...careful with pocket knives), I plugged it back into the door harness and did some experimenting with feeler gauges (keep those minds out of the gutters, folks) and figured out that 3/32" was about the right size for a new bumpstop. The old bumpstops were too far gone to pull any measurement off of. I found some high density sealing foam that happened to be the right thickness, cut little squares of it to fit where the old bump stops had been, and epoxied those squares in place. The foam is the type you can get at auto supply stores for sealing windows and suchlike.
Please forgive the weird looking pictures. I have one of those Hitcase Pro ruggedized cases on my iphone and it has a fisheye lens. Great for awesome outdoors shots...not so much for technical photography it would seem.
Here's a pic of the door with the panel off. The actuator motor is inside, lower left corner of door, oriented up and down. Two 10mm bolts hold it in
The two 10mm bolts...
The removed door panel:
Here's a pic inside the door, looking up at the motor from below. You can see the wiring harness plug that you have to undo when you take the motor out. I was able to unbolt the motor and get it outside the door before unplugging the harness...much easier than trying to get that plug undone in the door.
Inside the door looking down at the actuator. As you can see, I've already disconnected the pushrod that goes from the actuator arm (with the little green clip) up to the door lock itself
Ladies and gentlemen, the componant of the hour:
And with the mounting bracket removed:
Here's inside. You can see the little foam bumpstops that I installed. I didn't get a pic of the old ones...but they just looked like slimy black grease.
The vehicle is a 97 LS with 180k miles. The symptom was whenever you tried to unlock the vehicle, either by hitting the button on the inside or using the key, the rig would unlock itself and then intantly re-lock itself.
I followed the instructions linked to above and sure enough, my actuator motor's little rubber bumpstops had indeed turned to black cream cheese. This was allowing the locking arm quadrant to overthrow itself, overunning the microswitches and causing the motor to freak out back to the locked position. After I removed the motor and popped the cover off (and cutting myself...careful with pocket knives), I plugged it back into the door harness and did some experimenting with feeler gauges (keep those minds out of the gutters, folks) and figured out that 3/32" was about the right size for a new bumpstop. The old bumpstops were too far gone to pull any measurement off of. I found some high density sealing foam that happened to be the right thickness, cut little squares of it to fit where the old bump stops had been, and epoxied those squares in place. The foam is the type you can get at auto supply stores for sealing windows and suchlike.
Please forgive the weird looking pictures. I have one of those Hitcase Pro ruggedized cases on my iphone and it has a fisheye lens. Great for awesome outdoors shots...not so much for technical photography it would seem.
Here's a pic of the door with the panel off. The actuator motor is inside, lower left corner of door, oriented up and down. Two 10mm bolts hold it in
The two 10mm bolts...
The removed door panel:
Here's a pic inside the door, looking up at the motor from below. You can see the wiring harness plug that you have to undo when you take the motor out. I was able to unbolt the motor and get it outside the door before unplugging the harness...much easier than trying to get that plug undone in the door.
Inside the door looking down at the actuator. As you can see, I've already disconnected the pushrod that goes from the actuator arm (with the little green clip) up to the door lock itself
Ladies and gentlemen, the componant of the hour:
And with the mounting bracket removed:
Here's inside. You can see the little foam bumpstops that I installed. I didn't get a pic of the old ones...but they just looked like slimy black grease.
