96 Explorer Sport: Driver side door lock jam- on and off

[Diginick]

Hi guys, for awhile now the lock on my driver side once locked, will stay locked. Occasionally it will unlock when I push the automatic lock button, when I'm having a lucky day I guess haha. Then a day later, a week later, whatever, it will get stuck in the lock position- either from locking the doors myself, or when the automatic locks go on while driving.
I did come across a way to disable the automatic locks at least, but even if I did that's just half the problem. It can still happen from locking it myself.
It's a 2-door sport, and I don't have any issues with the passenger side door, or the hatch, they all work fine. All the buttons work fine too, it's just the driver side door that gets jammed so to speak.
Also, the keypad lock on the outside (1996 Ford explorer), stopped working for awhile, started working again, and it's been on and off like that too.
Plus the key for the door does not work on my driver side, only on the passenger side.
With all these locking issues, I worried I'd get locked out of my car and have left it unlocked a lot of the time, but of course it eventually got broken into.
Since it's apparently just an issue on the driver side, could this be an electrical issue? I know there are some fuses associated with automatic and power locks.
One of my friends took the door apart awhile back, and did not see any issue.. although he got it to unlock that time, but didn't even know how. Then it went back to sporadically jamming itself.
Any help on this would be appreciated! I'm tired of getting in and out through the passenger side

 

[EB4X]

Check the outside contoured edge of your door....the electronic door lock motor mounts to that with a large quarter sized rivet....see if that rivet "cap" has broke off..(happened to another Explorer owner)..or you could have what happened with mine ...the cheap thin metal there bent out from continuous motor pressure...therefore the motor can't do it's job because of metal flexing out...minimal resistance....both scenarios will cause play / slop therefore inconsistent locking / unlocking....

 

[GLOCKer]

It sounds like you need to get that door panel off and see what you're working with. Mine had similar issues and I found the following broken in my driver door:

• Lock Actuator
• Latch
• Exterior Door Handle
• Interior Door Handle

I'd lay odds that your lock actuator is going out. You might also have a bad latch.

 

[Mbrooks420]

Spray some WD40 into the lock and insert and remove your key a bunch of times. Then put it back in and work it from side to side. It’ll most likely break free. After it does put a dry graphite lube in so it’ll stay free.

Since your lock works intermittently I’d suspect a sticky linkage inside the door.

 

[toypaseo]

as for your doorpad working on and off, your RAP module might be failing.

My battery died, and after jumping it, the doorpad didn't work, but worked later, and stopped again. Auto-lock feature worked still, but didn't after a while. I snagged a same part number RAP module from the junkyard and swapped them. The OEM code on the replacement module worked, and two remotes were programmed afterwards. Everything back to normal.

 

[koda2000]

If it's the latch itself that's jamming, it could be that a small spring has broken inside the latch and sometimes prevents the latch from unlocking. I had this happen on our '97 Expl. It would work fine for days and then jam preventing the latch from unlocking. If you played with the key long enough you could get it to open, but it was a PITA. It had nothing to do with the lock actuator or the key-lock.

Eventually I looked inside the latch from the outside using a bright flashlight and saw a small spring (not much bigger than a ball point pen spring) was loose inside the latch and it would sometimes block the lock mechanism from opening. I was able to fish the spring out with a long pair of twisters and I threw it away. Never had a problem with the latch again. From what I understand this is not an uncommon issue. IDK what the spring is supposed to do, but it worked fine w/out it.

 

[Diginick]

Check the outside contoured edge of your door....the electronic door lock motor mounts to that with a large quarter sized rivet....see if that rivet "cap" has broke off..(happened to another Explorer owner)..or you could have what happened with mine ...the cheap thin metal there bent out from continuous motor pressure...therefore the motor can't do it's job because of metal flexing out...minimal resistance....both scenarios will cause play / slop therefore inconsistent locking / unlocking....

Thanks I'll try to check that, but I'll probably need to open the door again first haha. It could be the case.

 

[Diginick]

as for your doorpad working on and off, your RAP module might be failing.

My battery died, and after jumping it, the doorpad didn't work, but worked later, and stopped again. Auto-lock feature worked still, but didn't after a while. I snagged a same part number RAP module from the junkyard and swapped them. The OEM code on the replacement module worked, and two remotes were programmed afterwards. Everything back to normal.

That's good to know, RAP module ok. Did you have to change the keypad code for it to work?

 

[Diginick]

Thanks guys, already a lot of ideas for me to experiment with here

 

[toypaseo]

The code on the replacement module worked. As for the code you can change, I did change that one to something more easily remembered...

 

[Diginick]

Well with an amazing strike of luck, I just opened my door with the key! Then I tried to test it some more by locking/unlocking again, and it got stuck. Damn! Could that be an indicator of the issue though?

 

[koda2000]

Your problem is not going to just fix itself and go away. Did you look inside the latch to see if there's something floating around inside the latch that's jamming it? That's about the only thing you can do w/out taking the door apart.

 

[Diginick]

You mean the inside latch? There's not much I can see just from looking, not sure..

 

[GLOCKer]

You mean the inside latch? There's not much I can see just from looking, not sure..

You really need to pull the door panel off and look inside. I'd almost bed money you have a bad power lock actuator. You probably have some linkages popped off inside of their too.

 

[Diginick]

You really need to pull the door panel off and look inside. I'd almost bed money you have a bad power lock actuator. You probably have some linkages popped off inside of their too.

Ya well my friend popped off the panel for me awhile ago, but couldn't tell what was wrong. I will try again, but it's pretty hard to do that when you can't open the door in the first place, for some space to work with. It's frustrating

 

[GLOCKer]

Ya well my friend popped off the panel for me awhile ago, but couldn't tell what was wrong. I will try again, but it's pretty hard to do that when you can't open the door in the first place, for some space to work with. It's frustrating

I feel ya! I had to pretty much replace EVERYTHING in my driver door! LOL It's TIGHT in there! It's very frustrating.

I'd plan on giving yourself a couple of days to monkey around with it. Start by popping that panel off and then maybe pulling out the power lock actuator. Once it's out, you can leave it plugged in and hit the door lock button, and see if it is still working. Might as well consider a new door latch just in case too. Figuring out the linkages is a PITA! I think I had two hours in getting everything in mine working? I had to google around for images and figure out the linkages.

 

[GLOCKer]

A suggestion for you:

If you're not all that mechanically inclined or just not feeling adventurous about trying to tackle it, maybe call a body shop and ask them if it's something they can handle.

If they will, they could probably keep you from ordering parts you didn't need and I'm sure they've had to mess with a bunch of car doors from wrecks.

 

[Diginick]

A suggestion for you:

If you're not all that mechanically inclined or just not feeling adventurous about trying to tackle it, maybe call a body shop and ask them if it's something they can handle.

If they will, they could probably keep you from ordering parts you didn't need and I'm sure they've had to mess with a bunch of car doors from wrecks.

I'm trying to tackle it for sure, that's why I'm asking for advice here. I'm no expert, but I typically learn on the fly with the help on Youtube and this forum, it's helped me fix a lot of things on my own. But if I can't open the door at all, I can't take the door panel off, or do anything. That's what's so frustrating.

 

[swshawaii]

Ya well my friend popped off the panel for me awhile ago, but couldn't tell what was wrong. I will try again, but it's pretty hard to do that when you can't open the door in the first place, for some space to work with. It's frustrating

 

[J_C]

If it's the latch itself that's jamming, it could be that a small spring has broken inside the latch and sometimes prevents the latch from unlocking. I had this happen on our '97 Expl. It would work fine for days and then jam preventing the latch from unlocking. If you played with the key long enough you could get it to open, but it was a PITA. It had nothing to do with the lock actuator or the key-lock.

Eventually I looked inside the latch from the outside using a bright flashlight and saw a small spring (not much bigger than a ball point pen spring) was loose inside the latch and it would sometimes block the lock mechanism from opening. I was able to fish the spring out with a long pair of twisters and I threw it away. Never had a problem with the latch again. From what I understand this is not an uncommon issue. IDK what the spring is supposed to do, but it worked fine w/out it.

That was my first thought as well, though when I removed my spring it did not start working, had to put a new spring in. On the other hand when my driver's side rear door latch spring broke, it started working again after just spraying a lot of grease in and working it around.

I tried to find the forum posts where I posted some pics of what the latch looks like and where the spring is but the forum search feature returned hits that would not load the posts, returned a not found error for a topic from 2009 and this link: https://www.explorerforum.com/forums/posts/2253478

Here are the pics again. This is the driver's door latch.

The last pic is the spring with the looped end broken off. When you look in the latch you won't see the coiled portion, it's up towards the top and only the straight portion is visible (if not broken) as approximated in the first pic by the green line.

I could not find a suitable spring at a hardware store so I bought an entire new latch, took the spring out of it, and put it in the old latch still in the door, with much patience and using thin, long, needle nose pliers... or maybe I used hemostats, I forget which. I made the pics so it is easier for others to see where you have to hook the spring into the latch if replacing only the spring.