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Manual to Power Door Lock Actuator Swap

tnxj

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Knoxville, TN
My wife's 99 XJ was an ex-military special with manual doors. When she bought it we paid a guy to install aftermarket keyless entry/ power door locks. Worked great (better than my 98 with factory pdl as far as range) for 5 years, but recently one of the aftermarket actuators has started slipping internally and making rather startling grinding noises intermittantly. The aftermarket actuators clamp onto the linkage rods that go to the interior door lock rockers (kind of ghetto). I've had to readjust the clamp setup several times over the years. Ideally I'd like to get rid of this crap rather than buy another universal actuator from somewhere.

Can I just swap in factory power actuators/latches and use the 2 wires that went to the aftermarket universal actuators to run them? I'm guessing the factory setup just used 2 wires too (switched hot and ground). Will they bolt up in the manual doors and the linkage all be the same? Everything looks very similar from my memories of what my 98 stuff looked like.

The aftermarket keyless entry controller with the factory actuators/latches seems like it would be a cleaner setup if it's possible.
 
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Just in case anybody finds this in a search:

Yes, it works great. So far I've only replaced the driver's front because, well, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Bolts right in like it came with factory pdl. If you go to a salvage yard ask them cut the wire so you end up with the plug and you can look up which wire is which in a wiring diagram.
 
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