Door lock issue

Hello, I have a 2001 Explorer Sport with a door lock problem.
I can lock the door but I can not unlock it. The only way for me to re-enter the car through the drivers door is to pull the handle from the inside, then I can open it from the outside as long as the door stays unlocked.
I can see and hear the door "trying" to unlock whenever i hit unlock on my remote, but its like it just cant quite get there. The passenger door works perfectly.
Also, I removed the door panel to take a look and it seems on the inside of the handle itself there are two springs that are just sitting there loosely. Can anybody help me out on these things? Thanks.

sd4wanter,
I went trough this pain myself on my 2000 Explorer Sport. For about a year I could open the door from inside only. I had enough and fixed it. You need to replace the door latch p/n 21812. I got it from Ford dealership and did the job myself. It is not easy... but doable.
You will need a big bright lamp to put inside the door and take very good diagram before you start disassembly, digital pictures will do as well. I learned a hard way...but don't worry, if you screw smthng up you could open passanger door ( I mean get inside) and take a look. That is what I did. You will need Workshop Manual to follow, don't even try without manual IMO. You can find download somewhere on this or another ford forum, I could not remember where I got it.
Good luck.

www.fordcds.com I believe

What about the key? Does the key work in the door lock? If the key works, the inside handle works, and the remotes don't, the problem is likely a failed unlock solenoid. The fact that the inside handle works tells me it's probably not the latch itself.

-Joe

Thanks for the info MrYS!

Mine's doing the same thing, but still works occasionally if I keep hitting the unlock button a bunch of times. Mine will also lock itself sometimes when I close the door. I locked myself out yesterday with the car running in the driveway and the house locked up. Good thing I remembered the keyless entry code, LOL. BTW, the key does not work on mine.

Its on my list of things to fix when I get around to it. The list is rapidly growing too.

I think that the "two springs just sitting there" is the "clue".... as was pointed out, there are numerous posts on dealing with the spring issue which is common. Good luck.

Silver X,

"Mine's doing the same thing, but still works occasionally if I keep hitting the unlock button a bunch of times. Mine will also lock itself sometimes when I close the door."
Same story here. That means that actuator (solenoid) is still alive. BTW, when I remove the old latch I have found one broken spring inside, but at that time I did not care anymore since I had a new latch.
Link fordcds.com doesn't work anymore unfortunately.
YS

MrYS said:

Silver X,

"Mine's doing the same thing, but still works occasionally if I keep hitting the unlock button a bunch of times. Mine will also lock itself sometimes when I close the door."
Same story here. That means that actuator (solenoid) is still alive. BTW, when I remove the old latch I have found one broken spring inside, but at that time I did not care anymore since I had a new latch.
Link fordcds.com doesn't work anymore unfortunately.
YS

Click to expand...

That broken spring in the latch is the culprit, but you can bypass it's function without replacing the door latch. After removing your door panel, look up at the rod that is connected to the back side of the door handle. I removed the window channel to get a better view of all of this--it's only held in by one bolt attached to the lower door frame. The bottom of this rod has threads on it, and threads into a yellow plastic block. Lift up on this rod, and while keeping it held in the up position, try your door lock switch and see if it unlocks. If it works, now you know what you have to do. That rod has to stay in the "up" position at all times in order to unlock the door. Find a small spring and attach it to the bottom threaded part(where yellow block is) of the rod, then to some other object above it which will keep this rod constantly pushed upward. I actually fished out the broken spring from the latch mechanism and bent a new "J" on the end that had broken. I attached one end just behind that yellow block and the other end to a small hole that was in the corner of the back side of the latch housing. Total cost of parts: $0.00
Been working great for the past five months.

Nice work, thanks for the info.

I might take a look at it this weekend if I get a few minutes free.

The broken spring inside the door latch was indeed the culprit!

The hook broke off the long skinny end of the tiny spring. I bent a new hook on it and put it back into its original location. It was fun trying to get it back inside of a latch that doesn't come apart. Although with all those springs and small pieces, its probably a good thing the latch doesn't come apart!

The latch had to come out of the door to work on it. I tied strings to each end of the spring and fished the strings through the latch to where the spring needed to attach. I held the long skinny end of the spring tight and pulled the string on the other end until the hook went into the hole. Once that was attached, I pulled the string on the long end until the spring's hook was near the little t-shaped tab and poked at the spring with a screwdriver until it hooked around the tab. Then I cut off the strings with a razor knife and put everything back together.

It was a pain getting all the rods and stuff out of the door and then back in the right places, but it was a free fix and worth the trouble. And yes, I had to pull the passenger door panel off to see how everything was supposed to fit. Everything works like it should now. Thanks again everyone!

Very nice!! My fix is the "lazy man's" fix for this, and I guess you can consider your's more "by-the-book," even though you won't find this repair in any book! You deserve the medal of honor, or at least a key to the city, for taking that thing apart..more complicated than the Space Shuttle. Reminds me of my sunroof on my Porsche 944 ;--cables, gears,tubes,three micro-switches, just to be able to lift the rear of the sunroof a few inches. This is a problem that has plagued many. Wish I would've taken a few pics of this repair, 'cause if there's any thread that's deserving of a "sticky," it's this one!

I wasn't too concerned about taking pictures either. I just had to make sure I was able to drive my truck to work today. My other cars are at work in the shop lot, so I'd have to find a ride in. No time for screwing around with a camera.

Biggest problem was trying to see inside the door. My head couldn't fit anywhere to see more than a tiny portion at a time. Then once my hand and arm were in the way, I could see even less. I pulled off everything I could to get a decent view of the latch. Then I had the door all apart with the latch out and started thinking..."oh man, I hope I can figure out where all this goes and get it to actually work when its back in there. Its gonna suck driving to work with a ratchet strap holding the door shut!"

Actually taking the inside of the door apart without breaking anything was the hard part. It only took about 20 minutes to get back together. Everything just slipped right back into place. But I was really worried at first.

Lizard said:

That broken spring in the latch is the culprit, but you can bypass it's function without replacing the door latch. After removing your door panel, look up at the rod that is connected to the back side of the door handle. I removed the window channel to get a better view of all of this--it's only held in by one bolt attached to the lower door frame. The bottom of this rod has threads on it, and threads into a yellow plastic block. Lift up on this rod, and while keeping it held in the up position, try your door lock switch and see if it unlocks. If it works, now you know what you have to do. That rod has to stay in the "up" position at all times in order to unlock the door. Find a small spring and attach it to the bottom threaded part(where yellow block is) of the rod, then to some other object above it which will keep this rod constantly pushed upward. I actually fished out the broken spring from the latch mechanism and bent a new "J" on the end that had broken. I attached one end just behind that yellow block and the other end to a small hole that was in the corner of the back side of the latch housing. Total cost of parts: $0.00
Been working great for the past five months.

Click to expand...

Worked for me I used Zip ties and it took less than 30 minutes and so far so good. Thanks for the tip it was free and easy and it souds like this is a common problem.

I lost use of my key completely. Then my keyless entry and my keypad wouldnt open the door.. I did notice that one of the springs on the handle is broke. Is this what you are referring to as the latch? I have a new one of those and all the pieces to fix it, will this fix my door lock?

Brian, does it sounds like the same problem I am having?

FltMedic/FF said:

Brian, does it sounds like the same problem I am having?

Click to expand...

Yeah, Very Similar. That Pesky spring only allowed me to open the door via the handle on the inside of the door. I just took off the door panel saw the yellow plastic nut holding 2 rods together that was referenced in one of the other threads and lassoed a zip tie around the plastic nut up and over the lip of the door where the manual door lock sticks through. I had to use 2 zip ties in series but so far so good.

Also while I was working on the driver’s side door the rivet for the passenger door lock actuator broke and caused the actuator to hang by the rod and would not allow the passenger side door to unlock.

Had to separate the mounting bracket from the actuator and punch out the rivet. Then using a 3/8" pop rivet and two #8 washers (1 outside of door 1 inside) mounted bracket back to door and then had to man handle the actuator back into place and also had to loosen the latch. But works good so far.

I had a similar problem, except i couldn't open the door from the inside or outside and the door wouldn't unlock no matter what. I ended up going in and out of the passenger door for a couple days lol. Also did the same fix as Lizard.

Mine had this prob. but it fixed itself ..?

subscribed for the lazy man's way out.

As above, I took the easy way out. I tried to use my broken spring to secure that rod connected to the door handle, but I kept dropping it and was nervous about having the spring snap back at me. I also didn't want to trash the spring so that I'd have it if I chose to remove the latch and put the spring back in.

I resorted to the "zip tie" method. Not even sure what I connected it to, but the key here is to just prevent that rod from moving downwards. There isn't much tension on the rod so it doesn't take much.

So far, I've been able to lock and unlock many times without it sticking. I had tried lubing the heck out of my latch and that only made the locks work better, but not perfect. Last night when I was probing around with a precision screwdriver, the infamous "broken spring" popped down. I'll reinstall the spring if this zip tie method fails, but I don't think it will, at least any time soon.

Once again, EF saves me from spending big $$$ to fix a weakness in a Ford design. I sure love my Exploder, but these crappy little designs can get a bit annoying!