I'm finally going to replace all the broken door lock actuators in my 2000 Expedition and started parts hunting on Ebay. The problem is that I cannot find a drivers side, front actuator. Actually, I can only seem to find rear door actuators. Are all four door positions the same? How many different actuators are there?

 

Are you sure the actuators are the problem? The usual problem is the wires where they go from the driver door to the body as the wires often will break in that area due to metal fatigue. I have found this problem with the rear doors also.
From what I've seen the actuators are all the same except for the rod that is of different lengths. Front Vs. rear doors.

 

The actuators are working, getting 12V and there's no evidence of poor connectivity through to the door wiring - windows, mirror heaters, mirror motors are working fine too. The actuators just aren't providing enough push to get the doors to unlock. No, they didn't all fail simultaneously - this has been worsening over the course of two years, each getting successively worse with time.

They lock fine some of the time; the locking action doesn't require as much motive power as the unlock action. The overall symptoms are consistent with degradation of the actuator motor overheat resistor, which is pretty notorious for this generation of truck. The first "click" of any door lock switch or the FOB gets a decent but weak effort from the actuator and each subsequent attempt is less and less effective, indicating the aforementioned resistor is heating prematurely, operating out of tolerance and dampening the current surge. Checking the current on the line shows successive drop on each charging of the circuit, indicating an increasing resistive load. I'm weighing the possibility of doing the old "pull out the actuator, open the actuator, bridge the resistor, rebuild, reinstall" trick, but I'd just as soon as put in a new set. I just need to know if I'm going to be going crazy navigating four different location specific bracket orientations for the actuators (LF, RF, LR, RR).

 

I have not looked them individually so the best I can suggest is to check the part numbers at Ford for the sake of accuracy.

 

So, I did the deed this past weekend, at least the two front door locks. The backs will get done later. The actuators for the driver and front passenger doors are identical; there's a metal bracket (which is riveted to the inner door skin) that can be removed and placed in any of the orientations you might need and the armature that connects to the latching mechanism is identical - so there's no need to worry yourself with finding the particular side you need on ebay... either front actuator will do. I disassembled the actuators by drilling out the plastic melt rivets and managed to get the motors out. A bench test of the motors found them to be working but with very little power. I pried open the motors (removed the plastic brush housing from the rear of the stator housing) and found the offending resistor. I popped the resistor out and used a small piece of wire and some solder to bridge the gap. The motors ran like champs afterwords. I reassembles the actuators using nuts and bolts in the place of the drilled out melt rivets and reinstalled the actuators (after some cleaning and fresh greasing). The door locks work perfectly.

I have to acknowledge this thread... https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/4...s-fixed-2.html ... for getting me started. the actuators are not the same as those shown in this thread, however the overall theory of design AND the motors within are the same.

 

If those actuaries are anything like the ones on my superduty you can fix them and not had to buy new ones. Go to the superduty forum and search" power door locks fixed" and it will tell you step by step how to tear them down and fix them. Fixed them on my truck and they have been working great for 3 yrs now and I only spent my time no money. It is not the actuator that is bad it is a connection issue inside the actuator.

 

If those actuaries are anything like the ones on my superduty you can fix them and not had to buy new ones. Go to the superduty forum and search" power door locks fixed" and it will tell you step by step how to tear them down and fix them. Fixed them on my truck and they have been working great for 3 yrs now and I only spent my time no money. It is not the actuator that is bad it is a connection issue inside the actuator.

 

Sorry about the double post.

 

Yep, that's the thread. I used a piece of wire and some solder to substitute for the resistor.

 

I just posted this on the other thread too.

2000 Expo, right rear, I attempted this fix today, but couldn't get the hooked end of the latch out. Is there an easy method of removal of the latch. I also tried to separate the pinched metal end where it is attached to the plastic with a screwdriver and was going to leave the hooked end of the latch in, but that didn't work either. What is the secret to getting these hooked ends out?

 

They're like a Chinese Ring Puzzle. You have to keep fiddling with it and it will come apart and as it is hidden in the door you can't see how you did it. At least that's how it was in my Mark VIII. There has to be a way to do it without doing it the way I did but, I haven't found it yet.

 

If you look in the door you'll see that the control rod is connected to the door latch with a little yellow clip that goes through the hole and makes the rod snug with the hole in the latch. That clip has to be removed, but not broken... I found that they can be pried back and out of the connection using a screwdriver. Just stick the screwdriver's working end behind the flange of the connector and twist and pull to work out the little tangs. Once you have that little clip out of the hole, you'll have enough wiggle-room to get the control rod out.

Getting the whole thing back in is another minor miracle. You have to get that little plastic clip back in the hole before you insert the control rod. Make sure you have a tool to grab the clip out of the door when it falls down into the door many, many times. I used a straitened wire hanger bent into a hook. Once the little clip is back in place, you might have to bend the very end of the control rod a little to get it back in. It's surprising how much the end of the rod can be "modified" and still stay in the latch securely.

Incidentally, I had tried working at the pinched metal end of the control rod (that holds it onto the rest of the actuator)... it would be too easy to snap the plastic part of the actuator and you definitely would need to pry up both sides of that crimp to get it off. I suspect that is how the whole thing is assembled at the factory, with that crimp being the last thing they do to attach the control rod to the actuator.

Good luck.

 

Thanks Silverdawg, I was thinking the same thing with the plastic bushing, but I didn't think the tangs would collapse very far enough because of the diameter of the rod. I will hit this again tomorrow morning and post my results.