Help with doors please

[Nick]

Well it has been a long time since my last post so I hope everyone is well. Since we bought the house I've been too busy working on that to enjoy the pleasures of the jeep, with the exception of going to the lumber yard :gonnablow

It seems that my two back doors no longer like to function and the locking mechinisms are completely devoid of moving. Is there any whay to repair this without having to torch the doors off? Has anyone run into a similar problem? Thanks for any help you can provide.

Cheers,
Nick

[riverfever]

Are you saying that you can't push the button in on the back doors or that when you push the button in, the doors wont open? Congrats on the house.

[katarn444]

You do not have to take the doors off but you do have to take off the inner door panel. That is not too tough, a couple of screws and those plastic snappy things. Are you talking about electric door locks or mechanical?

K

[Nick]

river fever - the buttons can be pushed in, but the doors will not open, this also occurs when you try the interior levers.

katarn - first it was the electric door locks. I know that this is a common problem in cherokees, I forget the guy who did the wrtieup on the fix. I have a '96 and supposedly these were not as prone, but alas both the rear and front electric locks are useless. Interestingly the mechanical locks on the rear doors have also become nonfunctional....

Once I pop off the door panel what should I look for/do?

[Matthew Currie]

river fever - the buttons can be pushed in, but the doors will not open, this also occurs when you try the interior levers.

katarn - first it was the electric door locks. I know that this is a common problem in cherokees, I forget the guy who did the wrtieup on the fix. I have a '96 and supposedly these were not as prone, but alas both the rear and front electric locks are useless. Interestingly the mechanical locks on the rear doors have also become nonfunctional....

Once I pop off the door panel what should I look for/do?

Depends on where the fault is, but basically you'll have to probe around looking for whatever lever, rod, etc. you can find that will either unlock the door or unlatch it. It may take some doing, especially if the latch mechanisms themselves have failed. I think it's more likely that rust has prevented the locks from working properly, if it's been sitting a long time, or if you have power locks, that the power mechanism is somehow interfering with the action of the manual buttons. Check that the rods to the lock buttons are connected at the latch end (they sometimes pull off if something has jammed), and try operating the lock rods manually first. If that doesn't get it, you'll probably just have to grope for a while in the latch mechanism until you get the right part. I've had one of those locks break internally. I got it unlocked, and it seemed to latch fine, and I made the mistake of putting it back thinking it was all right. Next time I locked it the problem repeated. An obscure and unfixable plastic part inside the latch had broken.

[riverfever]

I'm on a ton of painkillers right now so this is dumb but....what about those stupid child lock things>?

[Timber]

I'm not on painkillers, and the child-safety lock is the first thing I came up with.

[Matthew Currie]

I'm on a ton of painkillers right now so this is dumb but....what about those stupid child lock things>?

Oh sheesh, both rear doors don't open from the inside, and....you can tell it's been a long time since my chidlers grew up. It never occurred to me!

[XJLaredo]

Child safty locks only affect the inner door handles.

[apsdad]

I also have a '96 that I bought about 11 months ago. When I first got it, the electric locks didn't work worth a s---. Even the manual locks were a PIA. I didn't have any problem with the buttons or levers.
I fixed them. All my electric locks work dependably. Here's what I did.
I removed the inner door panels and removed the door latch mechanism. You need to make sure you diagram which push and pull rods go where.
Then I cleaned the entire unit with brake cleaner; that's right, brake cleaner. Make sure you move all the movable parts to work all the gunk out of it. Then I sprayed them with WD-40; followed by white lithium spray grease.
They all work fine.

[Nick]

Thanks for the replys. You folks reaffirmed what I was going to do, though I have to admit I was hoping for an easy answer. I know what I'm doing this weekend.........

[Matthew Currie]

Getting serious again for a moment ( I know it wasn't the child locks, but it's funny that the idea had never even crossed my mind)....I notice you're in Massachusetts, which means pretty likely that the latches are rusty. Rears especially will do this because they're used so little. I've had problems with this on a couple of Jeeps, with them getting so stiff the handle mechanisms broke. So anyway, apsdad has the right idea. After the brake cleaner, though, I'd give them a total immersion in some kind of lubricant. If you haven't done it yet, you might also consider doing the rear hatch latch before it gets too bad.