$%&*ing door lock!

[thaharlequin]

A while ago my door lock broke, so I tore open the door card to get the POS open, then went to the j-yard and grabbed another. Naturally it broke within about a year or so.

My question is, can I adapt one of those ~$20+ manual door lock assemblies to fit in the place of the power version? Toyota wants ~$400 for a new one, so that's not a reasonable option, and having them break every year or three with the possibility of them breaking with the door closed and having to tear through the door card is no fun either.

[Mister_Perkins]

What is breaking?? the outside Cylinder lock or the inside lock (plastic)

[LynchburgCSI]

^ +1.

[thaharlequin]

The inside. The little pivot that moves the finger so it can hit the door latch when I pull on either the inner or outer handle busted, so if I lock it, it won't unlock unless I pull off the door panel and fiddle with the linkages until the one that opens the door is lined up again.

[Mister_Perkins]

I have no idea what your talking about

[thaharlequin]

Here's a picture.

http://www.box.net/shared/2g2e0c2sli

Edit - The part I circled in black isn't what failed. It just lost the damn spring that pulls the linkage up and prevents it from getting caught on the lever it needs to be able to push down to open the door.

[Mister_Perkins]

oh, your Door lock actuator . Yeah you can convert that to a manual lock actuator. Just get the latch assembly from a non-power car and install it. /done

[thaharlequin]

Awesome, thanks for the verification!

[Mister_Perkins]

the only problem you could even run into would be the linkage may be different. So you might need to grab linkage from a manual lock door as well. other than that, you should be fine. You just wont have a power door as far as the locks go. hehe.

You might even be able to get away with keeping the Power lock installed, but just running different linkage from your outside handle to inside handle

[thaharlequin]

FWIW, the manual door lock I bought new online seems to be identical to the power version, just w/o the actuator. It looks like the actuator is integrated with the lock on the power version, so no swapping the actuator for the power locks to the manual locks, but I haven't disassembled it so I could be wrong about that too.

[Silent Runner]

Intersting, I just posted on nearly the same issue,just two days ago! only one response. I've just tried replacing the whole unit, I'm not even thinking about taking it apart. It is an SOB to take out and replace!
My problem was with the solinoid and not the manual part of the lock. To date, two working manual locks, no working solinoids for the drivers side, front. Are these units maybe interchangable with the rear doors, that might have seen less wear over the years?

[thaharlequin]

It could be. I'll take a look when I'm at the j-yard and have some time to spare.

[dave1811]

I replaced my door lock actuator on one of my 99's for around $35-$40 from an online parts store. Once I figured it out, it wasn't all that bad of a job, maybe an hour or so. $400 for the dealer to do it???

[thaharlequin]

Oh jeez, I wish. $400 just for the part, plus labor if I had the dealer install it. It looks like the gen 4s have plenty of automatic door locks available, but the gen 3s have nothing reasonably priced except for aftermarket manual locks.

[Silent Runner]

Originally Posted by dave1811

I replaced my door lock actuator on one of my 99's for around $35-$40 from an online parts store. Once I figured it out, it wasn't all that bad of a job, maybe an hour or so. $400 for the dealer to do it???

Ya, I thought $400 for the dealer to do it too?! Now that I've done it three times, it's is about an hour job and about three broken fingernails to get you back to where your car started. It's the kind of stuff that made me go away from fixing up my car for a long time. If a job makes the car better in some way, I'll dedicate days, weeks, even months to it. If it just gets you back to where you started its just a chore.