Passenger Rear door stuck locked, mechanism broken

My rear passenger door on my '99 with power locks is stuck shut. It has happened before a few times with my rear doors (My drivers rear door actually no longer opened this morning, so I had to take that apart and get that one to open), but this is a little different.

The door is definitely locked and will not unlock, its not a problem with the handles not operating, its the actual lock mechanism. With interior panel off, I could not lock or unlock the mechanism by grabbing the rods and moving it around, like I was able to do with the drivers side. What makes this harder now is that the piece that the rod connects to is now broken (my bad, I guess I pulled a little too hard).

I tried looking around, I found a nice picture in this thread by kastein, but that is not what my mechanism looks like.

Any ideas on how to get this door open?

No one has encountered this before?

Haven't yet... but betting I will eventually! Just checked.

They switched a lot of the pieces in the 97 and later mechanism to plastic, but it's essentially the same method. Look at the top most inner corner of the mechanism. About half an inch to 3/4 of an inch down, and just inside it (a bit below the rod going to the top of the mechanism) you should be able to see a black plastic arm that sticks across a slot shaped opening. When you push and pull on the door handle rod, you'll see a piece of metal or plastic move up toward it. If the lock rod and actuators are stuck, it'll be blocked from actually pushing on it. Stick a phillips screwdriver (or any other suitable poking stick, it's just what I happened to have in my hand) in there and lift the black plastic arm up gently until the door pops open.

This assumes of course that you've already found a way to magically remove the inside door skin from the vehicle with the door closed. How you do that, and what condition it comes out in is up to you to some degree.

I don't have a camera right now, or I'd take pics, which would make this a lot easier.

I had this same thing happen to the rear passanger door on my 2000, I kept working the lock button back and forth having to push really hard in the unlock position but it eventualy released and unlocked it was as if the actuator was stuck on pulling in the locked position. probably doesn't help you much now that the lock rod is broken.

I encountered this problem, but it was on an 88 and a long time ago, so I refrained from adding anything since I could not describe exactly what I did, except that I managed eventually to get a pick or screwdriver into the right part of the lock mechanism and unlock it. In this case, there was a small plastic part in the mechanism itself which broke, and it would still lock but would not unlock. So my only advice is to keep on probing and see if you can get the thing to unlock, and then make sure that all further testing is done with the latch removed, since it will readily lock again and you'll have to do it a second time.

OVJeeper said:

I had this same thing happen to the rear passanger door on my 2000, I kept working the lock button back and forth having to push really hard in the unlock position but it eventualy released and unlocked it was as if the actuator was stuck on pulling in the locked position. probably doesn't help you much now that the lock rod is broken.

Click to expand...

I took the interior panel off, and grabbed the rod that connects the little lever on the door to the mechanism, and was pushing and pulling with a lot more force than could have been created by just trying the little door lever, but no go. And you're right, now that its broken it complicates things a little more.

kastein said:

Haven't yet... but betting I will eventually! Just checked.

They switched a lot of the pieces in the 97 and later mechanism to plastic, but it's essentially the same method. Look at the top most inner corner of the mechanism. About half an inch to 3/4 of an inch down, and just inside it (a bit below the rod going to the top of the mechanism) you should be able to see a black plastic arm that sticks across a slot shaped opening. When you push and pull on the door handle rod, you'll see a piece of metal or plastic move up toward it. If the lock rod and actuators are stuck, it'll be blocked from actually pushing on it. Stick a phillips screwdriver (or any other suitable poking stick, it's just what I happened to have in my hand) in there and lift the black plastic arm up gently until the door pops open.

Click to expand...

Thanks Ken, I'll have to see what I have have laying around that I can use as a pick.

This was actually how I broke the thing, I was using a big screwdriver, and it was just too much force. (didn't want to admit that before)

kastein said:

This assumes of course that you've already found a way to magically remove the inside door skin from the vehicle with the door closed. How you do that, and what condition it comes out in is up to you to some degree.

Click to expand...

I don't understand why people think this is so hard? I had both rear panels off, with both door stuck shut, within a total of 5 minutes, completely unharmed. I've also done this many times, as I've had my doors stick on me multiple times. There is only 3 screws, and the rest are just push pins.

Matthew Currie said:

I encountered this problem, but it was on an 88 and a long time ago, so I refrained from adding anything since I could not describe exactly what I did, except that I managed eventually to get a pick or screwdriver into the right part of the lock mechanism and unlock it. In this case, there was a small plastic part in the mechanism itself which broke, and it would still lock but would not unlock. So my only advice is to keep on probing and see if you can get the thing to unlock, and then make sure that all further testing is done with the latch removed, since it will readily lock again and you'll have to do it a second time.

Click to expand...

I'll be ordering a new mechanism tonight/tomorrow, so that when I do get the door finally unlocked, I'm going to switch in the new, unbroken and unstuck one.

Begster said:

Thanks Ken, I'll have to see what I have have laying around that I can use as a pick.

Click to expand...

Shouldn't need to be anything special, literally anything most likely including a ball point pen will work. No special force was required, so you probably were poking the wrong thing.

Begster said:

I don't understand why people think this is so hard? I had both rear panels off, with both door stuck shut, within a total of 5 minutes, completely unharmed. I've also done this many times, as I've had my doors stick on me multiple times. There is only 3 screws, and the rest are just push pins.

Click to expand...

On my 96, it was a real party, let me tell you. 96 and earlier have the fiberboard backing with vinyl / padding glued+stapled over it, instead of a plastic panel with clips. I pretty much brutalized mine removing it with the door closed. The front doors are also much more difficult as the front edge is trapped behind the end of the dash and the rear lower corner is semi trapped behind the seat. Rear doors are far easier to pull the skins.

I really need to get a new camera and take some pics of this, I think it'd come across much better with some pics than with my words.

I have a 2001 with the same problem. Driver rear door stuck locked. If anyone can post some pic's that would be awsome! I'm scared to "Try" and remove the interior panel. You know you start with the best effort but somehow end up with an oops....

jeepcj/jeepxj said:

I have a 2001 with the same problem. Driver rear door stuck locked. If anyone can post some pic's that would be awsome! I'm scared to "Try" and remove the interior panel. You know you start with the best effort but somehow end up with an oops....

Click to expand...

Three screws: two in the little door handle you would grab to close the door, and one behind the latch to open the door. Remove those and then just pull on the panel, it will come right off.