I replaced my door lock motors maybe about a year ago. When I did them the originals only had 3 bolts holding the motors together but had 4 holes. The new motor came with a bolt to hold it together. When I transfered the back bracket from the old motor to the new motor I used the extra bolt in the 4th hole so 4 bolts altogether in new motor.

I tried the new motors before putting the door panels back on by the buttons only and they worked fine. After I put the door panels back on and a couple days later there came a time when I needed to unlock the passanger door by hand from the inside and could not push the lock over to unlock the door. It was very stiff. I tried unlocking the doors from the outside and the key doesn't want to turn to unlock the doors. Have to force it hard to get them to unlock and sometimes worry about breaking the key. I have an alarm installed so I can unlock it by that and they work fine with buttons on the doors but when I have to unlock them manually for any reason it becomes a real pain.

Could adding that 4th bolt be the reason my door lock motors are so stiff to unlock manually?? By the way these are A/C Delco replacements not aftermarket motors. I can't think of any other reason why. The install went smooth.

 

anyone??

 

Oil your door latch .. My locks didn't work very well and I took out the latch ***. cleaned it in a parts washer and then gave it a oil bath they work great now... btw its a pain in the ***...

How do you like your trans??

 

doors unlocked fine and didn't have this problem until I replace the lock motors both doors having identical problems. I think its a problem with the motors. Going to remove this weekend and see if removing the extra bolt makes a difference. Must have been left out for a reason and dumb me thought I would just add it for no special reason. Other than it looked like a hole that needed to be filled

The trans is awesome!! Unfortunatly the motor is tired and can't put the trans to it's limit. As soon as the body is done the motor is next. Pick up my new fender this weekend. You must have checked out my site!! Had the trans in for about 3 weeks now with no complaints.

 

The lock solenoid is almost never the problem. The real problem, is the latch mechanism is all crudded up, and needs to be pulled out, soaked, and re-lubed. Like Tony said. I've had to do that twice so far on my 83 car, about once every 8-10 years.

You can swap lock solenoids from now till Doomsday, and not fix it. All the solenoid is, is a piece of wire wound around some iron; it either works or it doesn't, it doesn't "wear out" or "get weak".

 

both locks slide fine when unlocking and locking manualy until I replaced both of them. Then both suffered the same symptoms. So I don't think that both mechanisms became cruded up at the same time. I'm going to pull one of the lock motors off this weekend and remove the extra bolt that I added and see if this makes a difference.