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This mod is for coupes. I have no knowledge of how verts might be modded.
This mod is for those who wish to keep the locking fuel door intact but fear having the lock mechanism fail to release. The mod is easy, so easy I'm surprised GM didn't do it for us. Here's the parts you need, I had them laying around the house.
parts are water line used for ice maker, ferrule for water line, picture hanger wire, small heat shrink tubing, copper crimp bead, anchor pad, cable ties. Not shown is a split ring I used for a wire pull
I'm not going to describe how to remove the wheel well liner, its easy and likely has been documented somewhere before. So we start with making a hole for the release cable. This cable will be accessed inside the rear storage compartment. Drill a hole in the side of the storage box about where you see mine. Exact location doesn't seem to be important, but it must be in front of the cooling duct. Don't drill into the front of the box, the wheel well liner will interfere with it. (see ver 1.0 ) The hole must be the size of the ferrule, see, cuz we're going to push the ferrule through from the inside. The ferrule isn't long enough to go through the box liner, the box itself, and into the water line far enough to hold well so I pulled back the liner and put the ferrule through just the box, then slid the water line over the ferrule from outside, holding it all together. Here its assembled.
drill hole into side of the box
Pull water line up behind the bracket here and tie it down. Hold it up over the wheel arch and size it by cutting it off 4 or 5 inches short of the door lock assembly. Any length is close enough, this is all hidden.
At this point I fed my picture hanger wire through the water line and into the box. Then I fed it through a small hole in the liner and pulled about 6 inches of wire into the box. I chose picture hanger wire because its very strong and quite flexible.
liner held back as I fish wire through hole in liner
At the other end I form a slip knot by crimping the copper crimp in such a way that the end of the wire is held tight but the loop is allowed to slip like a noose. The copper crimp is an electrician's thing, not everyone has them laying around. Any way you can make a slip knot noose should work.
slip knot made into end of wire
Now I prepared the door lock assembly for the noose I just made. First pull out the plunger (black plastic) gently with your finger, then pull down on the motor assembly (white plastic) until it slips out of the yoke it fits into. You don't need to pull the assembly out, just down a little for working room.
finger behind pin, pull it out toward you, gently
finger over white motor assembly, pull down gently until it slips from the yoke.... not far!
Now slip the noose of wire over the locking pin and slide it down until its around the white part of the plunger. tighten the noose. Press the white motor assembly back up into the yoke and fit the black locking pin back into the guide and hole. Add a tie down anchor inside the rear quarter panel above the axle line. Tie the water line to it.
Clean panel before attaching the anchor. Leave end of water line to free to self align.
Now, inside the storage box slide the heat shrink tubing over the wire. Next wrap wire around a split ring or other pull item, tie wire, then pull the heat shrink over the rough end and heat it.
This is all you see of this mod. Pull the ring to unlock the fuel door.
Test it by locking the car, with hatch and fuel door open. You can see the locking pin come out when you lock the car, then pull on the wire inside the storage box and retract the pin. If it works then try it by locking the car with the fuel door closed, then unlock it with your new release cable. If that works then reinstall you wheel well liner and rear wheel. You're done.
Note about the feel of the thing. This door lock/release assembly feels like a motor and gear set rather than a simple solenoid arrangement. When you pull the release cable installed in this way you will feel resistance, and you will feel the gears and motor being turned as the mechanism moves. Play with it a few time while you have it apart to familiarize yourself with its feel and movement.
Any questions feel free to ask. Like I said, its easy. It took longer to write this up than it did to do the mod.
Looks like a well thought out plan.
It would be interesting to see how much slack and clearance you ended up with on the end of the cable that attaches to the plunger.. Any photos?
I wonder if the wire is actually on the plunger and has to flex much, it might end up interfering with the operation of the actuator...
Might be better to just attach it to the locking arm where you just flex the arm enough to open the door instead of actually trying to change the position of the actuator motor.
Since you have the plastic tubing as a guide, it might be better to use a more flexible, high strength, fishing line than the steel cable.
I have also checked the resistance of the actuator plunger and agree it is a motor with some gears for mechanical advantage.
Thank you TEXHAWK0. I made this up once, ver. 1.0, and found faults that I addressed in ver. 2.0 so yes I've thought about it a bit. You make some valid points in your observation and I'll answer each point.
There is very little slack at the plunger end of the cable, but the motor is plenty strong to pull more from the wire cable. There's slack inside the box at the other end that can supply the need. With the water line as a cable guide (not used in ver. 1.0) there's very little, almost no, resistance to the inner cable's movement. I didn't take a picture of the finished loop on the plunger.
Another note about slack at the plunger. As I said in the original post, cut the water line about 4 or 5 inches short of the lock plunger. Its not needed that it go all the way. And the gap between the end of the water line and the plunger will allow the cable to flex back and forth so it doesn't interfere with operation of the lock.
I decided the wire should go around the white plunger which is part of the actuator motor rather than the black plastic plunger. The black plastic is flexible and its quite possible that pulling on the cable will pull the locking pin on the end of the black plunger out of the guide hole in the filler neck. That would require removing the wheel well liner the make right again. At least you'd be able to put gas in it, though. By tying to the white plunger that isn't possible. It also puts the tension on the motor, where the resistance is being applied.
I chose picture frame wire because its very strong and quite flexible. Fishing line should work equally as well. One thing comes to mind about fishing line, it deteriorates with time. At least most monofilaments do. So does wire, I suppose, but wire seems much more permanent.
In application, this thing will sit unnoticed and unused in more than 99% of the cars its added to. It won't cause damage to your lock mechanism because you won't be using it. I hope I never need mine but now I have it so I feel better. I think.
I just purchased a Grand Sport and have not run into this issue and hopefully I won't. I will certainly note this thread down as a fix if I do encounter the issue. Thanks for taking the time for the write up. I do have an idea for a version three, what about using a bicycle brake cable? It's shielded, flexible and has the tab at the end you could pull on.
Good call, a bicycle cable should be adaptable and work great. Its what its designed to do. Any method of providing a low drag release mechanism should work.
Ver. 1.0 worked but was not um.... entirely successful. It was a braided nylon cord that ran out the front of the rear storage box, over the wheel well liner, and tied to the plunger. The friction of the cord rubbing on the liner and the abrupt turn into the box made drag a big problem. This spurred the wire idea, for strength. Then the water line came in as a guide because I couldn't maintain control of the wire nor provide a smooth exit of the wire out of the box. It serves well as a guide and a friction reducer. Another plus with the water line/ferrule arrangement is that the ferrule can anchor the water line to the box where the wire goes in. Below are pictures of the ferrule and a piece of plastic I've installed it in. The hole is correctly sized, 11/64ths, so the head of the ferrule can't pass through. The hose is also too large to pass through so its self anchoring.
There must be dozens of ways to make this kind of thing up. I figured out two of them.
water line and ferrule. Common refrigerator water line connection parts. Can be bought at any hardware store.
Ferrule shown in application. Once connected the water line can't move from its position. The water line is pushed all the way onto the ferrule to complete the install.
My 2015 with 11K miles had fuel door locked this week.The gear assembly was jammed inside and could not pull plunger out of fuel door locking hole,
I had to reach up and cut the plunger arm with tin snips to free the door.
Just an FYI that a cable release may not help if the whole plunger assembly won't budge like mine. Won't lock anymore :^)
Great post! I actually just had the locking mechanism replaced by the dealer. On mine, it wouldn't lock. I live in a condo complex and the car stays outside, so I feel better now that is locks.
An easy fix would be to open the fuel door and lock the car. This will extend the lock. Cut it off. Or put a nut and bolt through the door hole or buy a plastic plug fastener and put it in the hole. Cost is almost nothing.
Defeating the fuel door lock is easy as pie. Numerous ways to do this. Some owners, like me, prefer to have the door lock intact to prevent tampering. Before you remind me how easy it is to tear the door off or the likelihood of vandalism due to a frustrated thief, check with a LEO. The one's I've talked to say there's fewer reports of fuel tampering on cars with locks than without. Its simply a layer of security, just like the locks on the doors of your home, and your car for that matter. You do lock your home and car, don't you?
05-14-2017, 08:03 PM
New Mod - Fuel Door Emergency Release ver. 2.0
) The hole must be the size of the ferrule, see, cuz we're going to push the ferrule through from the inside. The ferrule isn't long enough to go through the box liner, the box itself, and into the water line far enough to hold well so I pulled back the liner and put the ferrule through just the box, then slid the water line over the ferrule from outside, holding it all together. Here its assembled.
