Another Post on Door Latch's for a 2004 Sport-Trac

[RIGLEY]

First off i understand that their is a million posts on door latches but nothing that im curious about.

Yes im another owner that uses the dome light in the down position for the last 2 years to kill the interior lights until i hit 20 mph then they will go out, but the light on the dash stays on to show a door ajar aswell as the airbag light.

i have tried the wd40 trick and spraying into the locks to no result, today i worked on the truck to see if i can figure out what door it is..

well with the key in the ignition and in the ON position i open the driver door and the truck will ding ding ding, so im opting that door out !

i cant seem to figure out what door is at fault, so 3 doors to rip apart to have a look. i notice that their is 2 wires that go to the switch latch unit, one black and one green with a stripe of pink or so.. i have tested the black wire at the end switch side to cont to an inside ground and all is good.. when i got to the passenger rear door i noticed that the other plug wire that is on the latch was not on, so i thought bingo here it is, plugged it back in and still the same problem...

question,
1 what is the other wire (green) for on the latch ? (12v+)
2 what is the ground wire used for ? meaning if the latch is damaged can i rewire to show the door always closed?
3 is their a way to figure out what door is the problem ?

thanks all in advance !

and im sorry if this post is somewhere else i could not seem to find the information that i was looking for so that's the reason for this post !

 

[gtyates]

Thos post has a great pic showing the inside of the door. http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=207373

I found the grey with yellow striped wire to be broken off inside of the connector at the switch. A creative repair resolved the issue for me, and I had the exact issue you describe in this post. My broken wire was in the driver's door. The most annoying for me was the autolock feature not working, as it would try to lock but only make the interior lights blink and the door chiome go off.

 

[RIGLEY]

GTyates,

it seems like more people are having problems with the spring, to which i have no problems with on my 2004 sporttrac, its just that dam interiour light not going off !

looking at the latch from the inside i have two wires going to it. one is a black wire which shows me a ground ( NEG- ) and a green i think ( sorry its late ) with a pink stripe on it which shows me ( POS 12+V ) the black wire is attached to the top of the latch onto a spade connection while the green wire is attached to a plastic clip that clips into a connection on the side of the latch into a black flat round thing...

im not sure why the door latch has a + & - wire, electrical thinking if i was tring to make a circuit would i not just use a ground wire connection to complete the circuit to operate the dome light... ?

so considering that the latch has a + & - whats its purpose ? do you not think that if one of my latches were a problem that i would be able to either connect or short or ground or un-ground the wires to force the truck to show an open or closed door, for testing purposes ? and when upon testing that i would find the door that's showing me the problem then just wire the thing to show the door closed all the time, instead of replacing the latch at a $200 cost ??

any help would be great ! thanks

 

[gtyates]

In my door I had a black wire and a grey w/yellow strip wire to the switch. When I grounded the grey wire out (which was easy as it the broken end was just dangling inside the door) it caused the interior lights to come and stay on as well as the door ajar light in the dash. This was good as I knew the wiring was basically good. But for me the grey/yellow wire was broken off at the switch. I sent you the link to simply show the 2 wires. My problem also had NOTHING to do with the latch but was simply a broken wire. I suspect you have one somewhere in your door as well. Only way to tell will be to take each door panel off and look until you find it. Good luck!!

 

[bdmaash]

further down the post there is a description of of how the latch mechanism (door open/closed signal) works. (unfortunately you will actually have to read some posts)

The post is for a 2001 sport trac, the 2004 may be similar operation.

In your case maybe you should buy a ford service manual, since it appears the wires are colored differently.

 

[RIGLEY]

Dome light / door latch quick fix

GTyates,

thanks for your input ! I now understanding how it works i did a little experiment that may help others !

considering that if the power wire that goes to the door latch is grounded/shorted in the door this in turn will turn on the dome light. (shows a door open)

if the wire is NOT grounded/shorted the dome light will be off. (door closed)

i have a quick way to determine if the rear doors or front doors are the causing factor, its a 50/50 system

1 open all four doors
2 move the front seats all the way forward
3 remove the trim from the back floor at the door
4 then peal back one side of the plastic trim that's behind the front seat seat-belt's
5 now you will see a black connection with wires that leads into the rear doors for window power, speaker power, latch power
6 unplug both connectors ( driver and passenger )
7 now see if the dome light goes off with the front doors closed.



IF YOU NEED A QUICK TEMPORALLY FIX CONTINUE TO READ

what i ended up doing is that i know that is one of the rear doors, i pulled the black rubber wire loom out of the truck so that the wire and connector hangs into the air from the door, i could then pull the red center plastic pin protector out of the male connector ( the one that is connected to the door not the inside of the truck) and pulled the pin out that connects to the door latch switch, i removed the door trim at this point to verify that the wire that connects to the latch is the one im looking to pull out of the connector, then plug the connector back in without the pin installed , check with the front doors closed that your light on the dash and the dome light go off, now unplug the connector and insert it back in the holE for the door and replace all trim panels.

This eliminates the door latch light door open problem (temporally) but allows the power window and speaker to continue to work until more time is on your hands to do the rewire process or buy a new latch.