My drivers door worked fine last week. Now the door seems to be locked and won't unlock. Luckily I haven't done any interior work yet so there are no door panels installed on either door.

By comparing the drivers door to the passenger door, the door lock rod hits a tab that moves up and down. The passenger door tab moves without much effort courtesy of a spring. The drivers side is missing the spring and the tab will only move half the necessary distance. My fear is that the spring has been dislocated and lodged itself into the door latch mechanisms.

What do I need to do to get the door open?

 

Well, fortunately, half the battle is won since the door panel isn't on there!

My door was frozen shut when I got it, but I was because of the door handle spring, not the lock being stuck in place.

You're saying the rod is attached with the clip, but it won't move the full travel distance?

I'm assuming you've already tried all the jiggling and persuading with some needle-nose pliers and/or a screwdriver. :smash:

Maybe you can try removing the door handle / lock. That will give you better clearance to get to some of the locking mech. If you have a svc manual or assembly manual, you'll have some good pictures on how to do this.

 

You have the exact same problem I have. My drivers door doesn't unlock all the way either. If you have the door panel off, unbolt the access panel at the bottom of the door. Shove your hand in there, and you'll feel where the lock rods meet in the door. You need to over extend the lock rod to get the door to unlock. The problem with mine was in the door latch itself. Once I got the door unlocked, I could open, close, lock and unlock from the inside. But when I locked it, then tried unlocking it from the outside, it wouldn't unlock again. I had the window rolled down so I could reach inside and try to unlock it, but that still didn't work. So I bought a used door latch, which I'm waiting on, and hopefully that fixes the problem. The locking tab in the door latch didn't look like it was releasing all the way, even though the lock rods were pushed all the way out. BTW, if you have large hands or arms, you might have troubles reaching inside the access panel with the door closed. I got my door open by putting a rag over the door lock ****, then taking a pair of pliers, and pulling on it with all my might, while trying to open the door at the same time. It did work, but took A LOT of pulling, and swearing. On the other hand, you could try spraying your door latch with carb cleaner to get rid of all the crap in there, and then greasing it back up with wheel bearing grease. Make sure to spray some WD-40 on the lock rod pivot points inside the door too. And while you got it apart, throw some wheel bearing grease on the window gear teeth. Sorry this was so long, but I hope it helps.

 

It isn't a problem with the lock rod that would come out of the armrest. The problem lies in the switch the rods throw.

Is there anyway to get the door open to remove the door latch? I'm kind of stuck and don't know what to do. I can remove the exterior handle, but I don't really know how much that will help me.

 

I agree with jason, mine did the same thing and that is exactly how I got mine to open. I thought it was the handle mechanism also climbed in and out of the pass door for a week until I tryed snatching the lock rod back and forth.

good luck

 

if you look at the locking mechanism you'll see an arm on the inside where the rod from the front connects. Below it are two tabs one goes down when the lock is engaged. The other a larger one when pushed down on from above with a long flat ended screwdriver will release the lock assembly. I took the whole thing out and soaked it in kerosene to clean off the road grime. Then played with it until I under stood how it works. If its missing some springs replace it. I called Gary Gruhala and got a used one for 40 bucks a heck of a lot better than 250 that Ecklers wants. He's at Gruhala Enterprises and you should find him here. His handle is Gary Dale. :thumbs: