Driver door locked

The driver door on my 98 XLT AWD V8 is locked and I cannot open it. The key, keypad, remote and all other door lock buttons don't unlock it either. All the other door locks work. The actuator seems to be clicking and the lock button moves a little but won't pop up. So I suspect it is mechanical rather than electrical, and anyway since the door is locked shut I can't get to the fuse box which is located on the left side of the dash. I peeled back the door panel and water shield as far as I could but am not getting very far in figuring out what is broken. I could not see any disconnected rods. I don't have a service manual (or a slim jim). So:
1. is there a way to unlock the door if the actuator is broken? could it be dead and still clicking or is a dead one completely unresponsive (i.e. no noise or movement)?
2. is there a way to unlock the door if a rod is broken or disconnected? if so what does one pull on to get the door to unlatch?
3. do I stand a chance of getting enough of the door panel off from the inside while the door is closed to repair it? I suppose one option is to remove the driver seat but would prefer to avoid this if I can.
If anyone has any ideas on how to open the door manually, I'm all ears/eyes...
thanks

u can try to call the cops(use the NON-emergency number) - usually they have a slimjim and will help with lockouts for free. have you tried opening your door from the inside? usually when u pull the inside handle, the door will unlock and open.

Jeff
thanks for your reply. Yes, i tried the inside handle...this is how I found out the door was locked. I also tried the outside handle. I even tried swearing at it.

Since I can get inside the door, sort of, from the inside, with the window up I would expect to be able to pull on whatever it is a slim jim would pull on. do you know what to pull up on? if i knew this i would not have to call the police.

I have also tried pulling up on the lock button as hard as i can to no avail.
thanks

i have the same problem. if you feel resistance on the inside door handle just pull on it hard. it feels like your going to break it off but it doesn’t. thats how i open the door. another way i open the door is i put the key in and turn it to the right. press the lock button (so you feel the lock pushing back on the key) then hit the unlock button and turn the key at the same time to unlock it. this opens it most of the time. i have been opening my doors like this for 4 months now. just haven’t gotten around to get it fixed. good luck

bentley,
thanks for your reply. i managed to get the door open last night, but am not sure why. A combination of yanking on the inside handle and simultaneously pressing the unlock button on the door did it (altho i had tried this many times before). I had to do this many times to get it to work. Of course this is only helpful if you're on the inside...I can't open it from the outside yet, but will try your method.

Once the door was open I popped off the inside panel. The latch mechanism looked very dry so I lubed it all over with white lithium grease and worked the inside/outside handles. Everything I could see seemed to be moving and there were no parts or springs dangling or lying in the bottom of the door.

the actuator appears to work, but i'm wondering if it is not going all the way up to unlock the door. my next effort will be to see if i can unhook the actuator and push whatever it is connected to up manually. if this works smoothly and consistently perhaps that means the actuator is starting to fail. If not, then i'm still stumped...

Here's an update on my situation...for benefit of others surfing these forums.

It turns out there is a thin little spring in the door latch that you can see by looking in the latch -- no need to remove the panel -- that in my driver door is broken. If you compare to the passenger door and notice how things move, you'll see the difference. The spring pulls on a piece of the door locking mechanism in the latch to keep things in place so there is room for them to move up and down. When the spring is broken, the lower end of the connecting rod that goes to the keylock gets in the way of the top of the rod that connects to the actuator. This causes the actuator to not be able to pop up the door lock, hence the door stays locked. I figured this out by feeling around inside -- if I held everything in place everything worked. This little spring is the culprit.

So the repair is to replace the the whole door latch, or just the spring. In either case the door latch has to come out, which looks to be a major hassle.

p.s. I tried bentley's method of opening the door and it worked 5-6 times until the rod that connects to the keylock popped out of its plastic holder. When this happened the door would not lock...but at least i could get in. Reconnecting it kept the actuator from popping up as described above.

thanks for the update. It sounds like i have the same problem. Are you going to attempt to fix it yourself or take it to the dealer? It sounds like a PITA to do it yourself which is why i haven’t fixed it yet. and im just a little scared of the dealers bill to fix it. Let me know if you attempt it yourself and how it went i might give it a shot

I have the same problem with mine also.

I thought the spring that I found in the latch assembly came from the door handle. The door handle on the driver side seems much lighter than the passenger side.

After I remove the broken spring I was able to open the door with the inside handle. If it binds up again I usually cant open the door with key because it would only pull out the link.

bentley,
the dealer told me over the phone today that i'm looking at +/- $200 with labor, parts and tax. he said the whole latch assembly has to be removed, they can't just replace the spring. the labor is $121 -- not "about $120", he said $121.00 -- which I presume means they are using a standard labor allocation for this job regardless how long it takes them (and even tho i already diagnosed it and removed the door panel). i also asked my local gas station mechanic who has done other work for me and he said he'd do it for $90 labor (1.5 hours) plus buying the part from Ford. so i am expecting $170 or so.

that's a damn expensive spring...but at this point i've already spent several hours on this, and i'd probably spend the better part of a precious summer saturday on the repair if i tried it myself, so i will probably take it to the local mechanic on monday.

garth -- i think you're talking about a different spring. my door handle seems to be fine. the spring in the door handle looks to be much heavier and is shaped like this when you look on it on the side: /0\ where the "0" is the coil. the spring in the door latch looks more like this: ----///// where the "///" is coiled around the straight part, except it hangs from top to bottom inside the latch assy (rather than side to side)

I replaced both my drivers side and passenger side latches on my 98. The part costs $30 per side online from Ford Parts Network. As long as you aren't afraid to take off your interior door trim panel, the work isn't that bad. It took me 2 hours to do the drivers side and then only 45 min to do the passenger side (big learning curve).

If you do want to try this yourself, I suggest removing both the drivers side and passenger side interior door panels. Leave one assembly completely intact so you can reference it putting all the rods and connectors back together.

Not_houdini
Like you said, I dont thinks its the handle spring either. After looking at it again today. ---------llllllllllllll_) The spring has 14 coils and is about 2" long which looks like the diagram I have above.

A Ford technician told me is has to be the power lock but I cant imagine that if it is because it has never failed to lock.

I both a actuator from x24 but I did not get a pin with it so I have not attempt to install as yet.

stubborn1
Did the replacement job fix all the problems with the locks? I hope everything is working good as new.

I had the door latch replaced today by my local gas station mechanic. Funny thing, he charged me $43 for the part...according to the dealers quote, the part would have cost about $75. anyway, the whole repair with labor, part and tax was $135 which was less than I'd anticipated. the door works like new now.

thanks to everyone who offered help on this one.

Stubborn1, not_houdini!!
What is the part called on fordpartsnet? I am trying to order it but they dont know what a latch assembly is. I got a reponse from them to explain what I am looking for.

The part I am looking for is what latches onto the striker. Its not the handle, its not the lock cylinder that the key goes into, nor is it the striker. Not the power lock actuator either.


Lets see, you turn the key in the cylinder, pull on the door handle and the connecting rod pulls on the door latch to release the locking mechanism thus opening the door.

The latch assembly is in the middle and far end which locks onto the door striker keeping the door shut.

Door lock mechanism.

I did my best in trying to explain. Folks has told me they got the part from you.

Thanks

This was the original email
>From: "Mr. Torrie R. McPhail" <torrie@fordpartsnetwork.com>
>To: <Jam_Roc@msn.com>
>Subject: RE: New Contact Us Comment has been sent
>Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 10:43:12 -0400
>
>Most likely no. can you be specific about what exactly you need ?
>
>
>
>Take care,
>
>Mr. Torrie R. McPhail - (Owner)
>
>http://www.fordpartsnetwork.com <http://www.fordpartsnetwork.com/>
>
>SCT Custom Chip / Flasher dealer
>
>Dynojet WideBand Commander dealer
>
>Wide Band Dyno tuning services now available
>
>
>
> _____
>
>From: Jam_Roc@msn.com [mailto:Jam_Roc@msn.com]
>Sent: Thursday, August 19, 2004 2:47 AM
>To: sales@fordpartsnetwork.com
>Subject: New Contact Us Comment has been sent
>
>
>
>From: Garth Wittock - Jam_Roc@msn.com
>Year: 1998
>Make: Ford
>Model: Explorer
>Vin: 1fmzu35p5wzb11226
>Phone Number:
>ZipCode: 10550
>=============================================
>
>LOCK, Explorer, Mountaineer, Left. Is this the same as the "latch assembly"
>the part that hit the striker and close the door? Thanks
>

stubborn1 said:

I replaced both my drivers side and passenger side latches on my 98. The part costs $30 per side online from Ford Parts Network. As long as you aren't afraid to take off your interior door trim panel, the work isn't that bad. It took me 2 hours to do the drivers side and then only 45 min to do the passenger side (big learning curve).

Click to expand...

Stubborn, I have the same problem. I think these are what you are referring to, but before I bought it I wanted to be sure that this was the part that has the replacement spring in it. Thanks!

LOCK, Explorer, Mountaineer, Right

Door Lock on drivers side seems to be a common problem

stelliform said:

Stubborn, I have the same problem. I think these are what you are referring to, but before I bought it I wanted to be sure that this was the part that has the replacement spring in it. Thanks!

LOCK, Explorer, Mountaineer, Right

Click to expand...

Well It seems that I am not the only one that has a problem getting into my drivers' side door, and mine is a 99 ex .....WTF! there should be a recall on this problem, to me it is NOT something that should be going bad in 4-5 years, I have never had this problem with ANY other car / truck. To pay $150 more or less, for a door lock now has me thinking is this something I can look forward to 4-5 more years down the road??? I am going to call FORD and let them know that it is unacceptable to be paying for an assembly that seems to be defective on the part of the manufacturer...maybe there is a TSB out already...guess I'll have to check alldata....

Sorry,

Been away from the computer for a while. I'll look for the part number tonight.

If anyone still has this problem here is what i did. i just had this problem, figured out it was the latch like you all said and went to the dealership and bought a new latch, like $37.00. and replaced it, took about an hout and a half to do with little problem, just watch how it goes to gether.

I just dealt with this last week. For a temp fix, I got the spring out and bent a new loop onto the broken end, and using a pair of tweezers reattached the end that goes way inside. Then i hooked the other end at the innermost upper edge of the door lock assembly and as far to the front as it would go. It isn't really supposed to attach there, but the door will work with it like that.

One week, and no problems so far.

If anyone is still interested, here are the part numbers for both the drivers side and passenger side door latch mechanism for my 98. I don't remember which number was which side.

4L5Z-7821812-AA
4L5Z-7821813-AA

Hope this helps.

Garth
Sorry, I was away -- on a trip to VA in the truck, where my stuff was securely locked inside.

I was not confident that the lock for sale on FPN was the right one, either. Once I decided to have the mechainc do it I let him figure it out.

Here is what I used to try and find out the part:
http://www1.autozone.com/servlet/Ui..._us/0900823d/80/0b/e8/74/0900823d800be874.jsp

It also sort of explains how to do it which might help if you are going to DIY. Someone else posted this in another thread, which has helped since i could not get to this page by navigating thru the AutoZone site.