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Another Door Lock/Unlock Question

LKN_xj

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Cornelius, NC
Hi there,

I've read many many threads on this and although it seems that despite this being a common problem and there's ample info, I still can't get my drivers door open consistently on my 91 XJ.

At the end of a three hour struggle last night, I actually got the door open. I literally did nothing different - I just sprinkled unicorn tears on the button outside and it magically decided to open for me. After that, it opened just fine about 10 times. I go out this morning to go to work and THE DOOR WONT OPEN AGAIN! Literally just sat there all night and decided to change its mind to not open.

To jump to the end, what is this and does its being out of position have anything to do with my inability to open my door?

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The details:

Door worked just fine until yesterday afternoon. There was nothing that happened that would cause the door to malfunction.

I can lock the door from the outside, but when I try to unlock with the key, it's like the lock cylinder won't let the key go all the way to the right. Like its binding.

Power door locks move all of the rods and all of the rods are connected and move freely.

I've drowned the whole mechanism in penetrating oil and honestly everything seems to operate very smoothly so I'm not sure where I'm getting hung up.

Hopefully this has happened to someone else and can give me some insight!

Thanks!


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that's part of the alarm circuit, just monitors the mechanical motion but does not affect it



Thanks, that's what I was hoping because there is no way I can get my fingers back on the backside of the lock cylinder to install it anyway. I disabled my alarm system because a strong thunderstorm would set it off, so I'll ignore this piece in my quest to solve this problem. The search continues.


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The story continues - keep in mind I haven't gotten my door to open all morning. I have been climbing in NASCAR style to use my jeep - it's my DD. I was leaving Walgreens 30 min ago and randomly my door flew open going around a turn. The handle wasn't pulled or anything.

I'm starting to think something is sticking.

I manually held the door closed without latching it and drove home. I took this time to liberally spray all the components with penetrating oil I could reach earlier because the door was closed. The door opened and closed great! Cycled it a few times and everything felt solid. I get back to work and open the door with the handle. Lock the doors using the power locks and close it. Then I try to open it from the outside. CANT GET IN! Same problem. It's like the unlock position of the lock cylinder isn't engaging. I can push the button and at the very bottom of the stroke it feels like it wants to engage something but it slips by and depresses all the way without opening the latch.

So there's something going on with the lock cylinder and the unlock button at the same time.


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Okay I've narrowed it down to two things:

1. The "button" that you push with your thumb has a ton of play in it before it hits the lever that drives the rod down to the latch.

2. The key cylinder does not allow me to turn the key all the way to the unlock position. Something is stopping it so it's just shy. Sometimes I get this pop where the key cylinder finally allows me to move the key all the way to the open position and I've learned every time I hear this pop, the door will open.

If I use the power lock to unlock from the inside, I can close the door and everything works perfect. If I LOCK the door using power door locks, and try to get it to the unlock position from outside, I can't do it.


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Okay now I've narrowed it down further. I ONLY get the problem when the door latch is in the "closed" position. If I manage to get the door open I can cycle the key cylinder open and closed smooth as butter. Key cylinder moves the rods and the electric push rod no problem.

Anyone?


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It may be an internal issue with the latch mech. Or you have a bent rod in the door. Bolth are possible. My driver power lick accuator isn't stron enough to lock it I just hit it with my thumb. Works for me and will hopefully stop me from making the blonde move


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Yeah I think you may be right. I ended up just pulling the whole latch out last night to investigate. It feels a little clunky but I also think the lever on the back of the door handle is worn severely as well. I'm picking up a door from a guy up the road hopefully tomorrow so I'm going to try to steal the guys from it and make it work.

Of everything I've worked on on this jeep, this is the most frustrating. There's so little room to work in there.

I've heard a lot about rods getting bent. How does that even happen??


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This is now fixed. Picked up a whole drivers door from a guy for 30 bucks and swapped out the exterior handle and linkage, and the latch mechanism. Worked like a charm.

I guess after 350k miles mine decided to give up the ghost.

I was extremely surprised how easily the new latch mechanism and linkages installed. It was almost like the linkages fell right where they needed to and the assembly was easy.

Thanks everybody


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