Driver door will not lock or unlock

[J_C]

BTW...all this talk about replacing that little spring when your latch has 20+ yrs of wear with dried out grease. Bite the bullet and just replace the latch so that everything moves freely as intended. Your door actuator will work with less effort as well.

Best I can recall (based on the date on a picture I took), the first of these springs I replaced almost 9 years ago, if not longer. Still using the original door latch, nothing else on it has broken since then.

Dried out grease is not a problem, because when it first happened I sprayed a lot of WD-40 in, which softened up the grease a lot, and thereafter I periodically spray lube them. If Ford had just put some lube on that lower spring pivot point, we might not even have this as a common failure point within the lifetime of the vehicle, though the sharp edge on that stamped steel connection point can't help.

When my driver's side rear door latch spring broke, doing that WD-40 flush and lube, was all it took for the latch to start working again with the spring still broken, but that didn't work on the front door, and the front door is a bit more important to me, and gets more wear.

I don't see any point in replacing the whole latch for just that spring, but if I need to, I still have the latch in a box, in a bigger box, in a bin, in a locker, somewhere.... lol. If I ever need more parts off of it or to use the whole thing then I'll dig it out of storage... and before installing it, I'll take a needle file and file a chamfer on that sharp stamped steel edge that the spring hooks sit on.

 

[Hacra]

Seems the current corona virus outbreak has delayed the delivery slightly, the fedex plane took a weird route.

I should have the new latch tomorrow mostlikely after which updates will continue. The old latch will be cleaned and i will TRY to repair it leaving it as spare for future or perhaps even sell it. should someone need it.

 

[Hacra]

In case someone is still confused about how the spring is attached (i certainly was), i made little video about it.



Feeling bit under the weather right now, gotta wait until i feel better before i start the replacement.

 

[1998Exp]

In case someone is still confused about how the spring is attached (i certainly was), i made little video about it.

Feeling bit under the weather right now, gotta wait until i feel better before i start the replacement.

Appreciate the attempt, but I still can't see how the spring hooks to that movable part. Can you make a simple sketch? -- it's too dark to see anything inside the latch in your video. Thanks!

 

[Hacra]

Appreciate the attempt, but I still can't see how the spring hooks to that movable part. Can you make a simple sketch? -- it's too dark to see anything inside the latch in your video. Thanks!

To clarify this all further i think i will have to pop the old one open, if you put the video full screen and pause it every now and then you might be able to see how it goes, but yes, getting light in there was bit tricky.

 

[J_C]

Appreciate the attempt, but I still can't see how the spring hooks to that movable part. Can you make a simple sketch? -- it's too dark to see anything inside the latch in your video. Thanks!

Here is a zoomed frame of the video at 32 seconds in. The moving part is outlined in black, the spring in red.

 

[Hacra]

Small update.



In my haste to put all together again i managed to somehow mess up something and now the doors won't lock, but they do unlock... (Yay!). So, i'll be taking it all apart again and figuring out what went wrong

Also forgot to take pictures of the gazillion rods that go all over the place, so there's small but unlikely possibility something is attached to wrong place.

 

[Hacra]

Okay, very late update.

I managed to FIX the old latch mechanism, i bent the old (broken) spring end to form a hook and attached string to both ends of the spring hooks, pulled the spring back to its position and done, fix took probably 1-5 minutes. I wish i would have thought of this sooner...

Below pictures of the solution....

Ps. do not try to get it attached with pliers, you'll end up in mental hospital (i tried...)

 

[fast_dave]

@Hacra