98 Explorer drivers door lock (only)

[jhudson279]

Hello, I have a 1998 Ford Explorer XLT SOHC.. I have seen many posts her for door locking problems, but I could not find one that related to my problem. All of the doors lock and unlock just fine with the exception of the drivers door.. It is stuck in the unlocked position. It will not lock via any of the lock buttons nor will it lock by pushing hard on the lock knob itself. The alarm still arms when i press the lock button on the FOB. When I see at a glance that it is unlocked and forget about the problem I end up setting the alarm off and it is very annoying, lol! when any of the lock buttons are pressed the drivers door does try very hard to lock but does not move more than 1/16" if that. I would assume something is just twisted or really hung up in there.. I will be pulling the inner door cover off soon but I was hoping for some advice on a place to start looking for the problem... Thanks for any and all help!

 

[vroomzoomboom]

more then likely the latch is bad. also at the same time, how are the door pins? i know that if those are bad they seem to kill the latch as well.

 

[jhudson279]

The pins are not too bad yet, but they are not 100% either.. I will start by checking out the latch and go from there. Thanks for your quick reply!!!