Firstly let me tell you the issue... My drivers side passenger door lock was frozen locked. You couldn't pull the tab up to unlock the door. So I pulled the door trim off from inside the car, opened the door, and pulled the lock actuator which was holding the lock down.

So the drivers side passenger door lock actuator died.

Well these things arn't cheap, and apparently they break on a regular basis, so I decided to take the old one out, but before buying a new one I'd rip it open and see what makes it tick...

Not sure if you guys are aware of this, but the internals of that thing are VERY simple!

After prying it open I found it's pretty much a series of gears attached to a small DC 12v motor, then the main cog drive pushes or pulls a grooved tab which moved the lock either up or down. It pretty much much looked like the rear end of an electric RC car, not very complicated!!! Clearly the gears are set at a slow high torque ratio as to activate the lock based on a high RPM 12v motor.

I simply cut the two wires to the motor and removed it, which once pulled wouldn't turn freely, it was seized, so there is my broken part... I went down to radio shack and bought a 12v DC 10,000 rpm motor... Pulled the gear off the head of the broken motor, pressed it onto the new motor... Soldered the wires up to the new motor , dropped it in, put the cover back on the actuator.. Put the unit back into the door, and like magic it's new again...

So what would have cost me 45+shipping on ebay, or $250 at the dealer plus a 2 week wait... I fixed in a matter of 15 min for the total cost of $2.95 and I'm pretty sure the motor I replaced it with will last a real real long time.

So anyone needing a new door actuator, don't bother... Just pull your old one apart... Assuming all that's broken is the motor, which I'm sure is the case 99.9999% of the time, you can do this the same day for the cost of an ice cream cone...

I tracked down the exact motor they use in the actuator, so here is the link, you could always just buy one of these, but what they had at radio shack was almost on par with these specs and looks like a more quality piece to begin with...

http://www.johnsonelectric.com/produ...?ProdID=201--A

 

Brad, Great Job thats incredible. I have a similar problem where my door actuator only
pulls in 1 direction which is locked. How do you pull the actuators off I inspected them
but did not venture into removing them.. If you can send a few step to remove them
I will try this procedure you did ..Thanks in advanced

Irwin Griego

 

Once you get the door trim off in the middle of the door you'll see a metal plate with 6 screws in it, on the other side of that is the actuator. Unplug its harness, remove the two screws holding it onto the plate, the other 4 screws retain the plate to the door so just leave those. Unhook the actuator from the locking rods and you've got it out...

Now you say your door only locks but won't unlock...

Inside the actuator there is the actual arm that moves up and down, that moves based on this grooved tab, one side of which fits onto the cogs, the other side fits over the arm... Now where the arm and tab meet there are little ying and yang teeth which gives the traction for the moving tab to pull the arm down to lock your door... For it to unlock there is this little rubber fitting that fits between the teeth and locks them together, so when you unlock the door the fitting pullsl the arm up as the tab moves over the cogs, 99% chance that little rubber fitting broke in your actuator. Makes perfect sense... If you take your actuator apart you'll see the little rubber fitting broken... You could use your imagination and make another one.

This fitting looks like two small rubber triangles connected by about an inch of rubber band material, I bet you the rubber band section of yours broke, you could use silcone to glue it back together...

If you put this fitting flat on the table, the profile would look just like this A____A

 

Great... good one buddy!!

Two questions:
1. How did you pry open the housing... did you just cut at it like with an exact’o knife?
2. Would you expect similar fixing for the driver's door actuator (remember that apparently the driver's door actuator is the lock brain for the alarm/central locking system)

My Disco I decided to quit its central locking system/alarm. After checking all grounds, fuses, ECU module and connectors, I came to a conclusion that the actuator went south on me (not too far though since I am in South Texas) so, I was thinking of opening the actuator and take a look at it but I found out that the actuator is sealed… since then, I keep putting it off and the actuator is still sitting on my desk.

After your post, I decided to give it a try but… do you have any experience with the actuator at the driver’s door?

 

Can someone post the steps to remove the lock actuator from the door of a discovery 2. I was able to get down to the plastic water protector but couldn't figure how to remove the lock actuator.

 

search door actuator, there are 2 great threads on it.

 

Has anyone else attempted this repair? My LF actuator stop working so I decided to give this repair a try. The problem I'm facing is finding a right size replacement motor. I've tried two local Radio Shacks and neither of them had the correct size motor. The motors they had were either too big or too small. I've also called hobby stores with no luck.

I was able to find DC motors on theJohnson Electric website,but it was hard to determine which motor would fit the actuator housing. The link that Brad posted doesn't work any more.

As Brad stated, the actuator internal is very simple with gears and a motor.

http://memimage.cardomain.com/member...jpg?013414-313

Since I had the actuator apart, I made sure I was getting voltage at the motor. With the actuator plug back in, I probed both sides of the motor (one side at a time) while pressing the lock and unlock button on the remote. You should have power on one terminal in one direction and power on the other terminalin the other direction. I had power in both directions so that confirmed my motor was bad.

http://memimage.cardomain.com/member...jpg?544514-313

There's someone on eBay who's selling DC motors. In his autcion he states that customers has used the motorstorepair actuators for different makes of automobile.He only sells them per lot (5 motors in a lot)Here's his auction.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=170271729242

Actuators are going for $30 on eBay, so I have to ask myself, how much am I actaully saving at the end in both time and money.

 

Well if you buy the lot of five you can doo all doors when they fail.
$30 for a actuator, is that new or used?

 

Update - the motor swap went well. Very little modification was needed to install the new motor. Here's a tuturial I created for swaping the motor. It's on my Cardomain site.

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/3002336/9


But (and this a big but) I have a problem. Due to loosing a vital internal piece of the actuator, I can not install my newly rebuild actuator. The piece I'm missing is the white adaptor piece that goes in between the shafts of the actuator. I've looked everywhere and can't find it. I wouldn't be surprise if I had discard the piece not knowing what it was.

From looking at this pic you can see the piece I'm refering to. It fits right under the actual shaft that goes in/out.
http://memimage.cardomain.com/member...jpg?121617-319

Does anyone have a known bad actuator they want to sell. The new motor has been tested and pass. I've come too far to be stuck on technicality like this. Please assist.[/align]

 

I am happy to find this thread... I purchased a 03 d2 march 07 and prior to the purchase I noticed the RR door lock did not lock, I told the seller that they would have to replace that at no extra charge in order for me to buy the vehicle.. They did "not happy to do so" fix the problem. I wish I had more knowledge then about this cause I would have re-negoitiated the price for sure... Thank's for the helpful info