WARNING: The following is long winded, but if you want your PDL's to work again WITHOUT spending any $$ read on.

I finally got tired of my non-working PDL's and decided to tear into my truck and find/fix the problem. There has been many discussions about possible issues and I have concluded that the majority of us are seeing actuator motor problems and not relays, switches etc. Ill start by saying the problem I have had is that when I hit the switch, the locks attempt to move and after repeated attempts, the signal appears to get weaker and weaker until nothing....I assumed relay or switch.....NOT THE CASE!

First I started by testing the signal at the harness plug to the actuator. Perfect. No issues here. Next I completely removed the actuator/lock mechanism and bench tested them with 12V..Here lies the problem. The actuator acted the same as when in the truck. First I did a thorough cleaning of all of the mechanism so it works freely and still had the same results. Here's where it get's tricky. These things are built so that they are NOT serviceable. I had already decided that they were going to need to be replaced, so I decided to break them open for closer inspection. It comes apart relatively easily, but appears that It cannot be put back together once apart. I drilled out two small rivets and then pried the case apart. As you pry the case apart you'll notice these small little plastic rods protrude up through the case cover. These rods are then "mushroomed" with heat through the upper case and then sealed with some kind of silicone. When you pry apart the case the "mushroom" head breaks off and the rod remains. You can dig out the silicone and mushroom head with a pick. It comes out very easy. Inside you will find a very small motor and some gear mechanism. I believed the problem at first to be worn brushes or dirty commutator contacts in the motor itself. You'll have to bend two little metal tabs out and pull off the brush housing on the back of the motor. I cleanded the gunk off the brushes and took 1500 grit to the commutator contacts and reassembled the motor. The motor worked, but if you applied even a slight amount of resistance on the armature, it would stop the motor. It should have been WAY stronger than this. I was stumped until I looked a little closer at the inside of the plastic brush housing. Inside you'll find a small, thin rectangular (thermal resistor relay, dodad, thingamabob??) pardon my ingnorance, but I'm not sure what to call it. All I know is that this little part is what keeps you from burning up the motor, should you continue to press the switch once the lock has been actuated. It appears that this thing wears out over time and will not allow enough signal to get through to the motor to make it work. THE FIX. I am cheap. Since I had done so much work up to this point, I decided that I would go a little further and try to make it work without spending the $$. I have better things to spend my money on than actuators. I took a small piece of aluminum foil and wrapped the "thing" voila! Perfectly working motor! I sat there and operated the thing for 10 minutes including one or two times stopping the armature and holding down the switch to see what would happen. The motor builds heat, but not much. Not enough to worry about. Now that I had a good working motor I decided I would try and reassemble the unit. The problem is you cannot glue the unit together as there is a rubber gasket around the perimiter of the case and if you tried to glue the rods into the case, you would not have enough pressure on the two halves of the case to keep the gears in place (these things actually apply a great deal of torque on the case) What I decided to do is completely break off the plastic rods flush with the bottom side of the case and then drill out the bottom case and screw it together. This worked perfectly. You'll need screws that are the same diameter as the holes in the top of the case to keep it from "wandering". Also the screws should not protrude through the back of the unit as some of the mechanism has some pretty close tolerances and a screw sticking through the back would not allow some of the mechanism to work (this can be remedied with a decent set of wire dikes or a hacksaw). I know all of this is hard to picture, but if you do decide to try this fix, you'll see what I am describing here. The locks are back in and working flawlessly.

Necessity and Thin Walletitis is the mother of invention.

 

Thank you so much for figuring out the problem of the dool locks, you have just saved me a lot of time as I am experiencing the same problem. Thanks once again

 

You should do a write up and submit it to the board. You may thicken your wallet for the effort. Excellent post.

 

How much are the actuators? I'm trying to see which is worse, jacking with it or telling my kichen hand it has to be done!

 

The small thermal resistor you are talking about is called a PTC relay. (Positive Temperature Coefficient) This means as temperature increases, so does resistance. As it is a solid-state device, there is automatically a .6 volt drop across it. This takes your nominal 12.6 and makes it 12 volts. Add in any voltage drops across a terminal in a connector and you can see where your voltage goes.

I have taken these things out of heater blower resistor assemblies, trunk release actuators and window motors. It's stupid to have them if there's no kids in the car to mess with buttons and hold them down for 10 minutes. Yeah, PTC relays are a safety device for excess heat, but they do wear out. GOOD WORK!!!

Cody

 

I had this problem awhile back and have explained it several time but it is a easy fix and cheap.
You need to purchase the lock actuators that alarm people use when they install door locks. I have purchased them on ebay as I have done several buddies door locks. Search for door lock actuators I have paid as low as $2.99 ea. You just mount them in the door leaving your old actuators in place just clamp the rod to the old rod and splice into the wires from the orginal lock. It is easy once you do your first one maybe 10min a door. Works great and your old ones are still there adding a little boost. Email me if you need more help it is just hard to explain but easy to do. Good Luck

 

SBFD8, the ones I see on ebay have new keyless remotes. When you say the old actuators give more boost, are the programed to the new ones or vice a versa?

 

Just a quick note on the replacement aftermarket actuators I believe SBFD8 is speaking about. I have purchased these actuators before and they were actually my temporary fix for my PDL problem in my 80 series Landcruiser. They worked great for about 3 months and then one burned out and the actuator rod weakened on the other and would flex too much at full extension to operate the locks. The actuator rod is made of plastic. This problem repeated itself SEVERAL times over the course of 2 years!!

The geometry is different however on the PSD and the actuators can be mounted so the mechanism is linear with the rod on the door lock **** minimizing the flexing/resistance issue. The main problem I found with these actuators is that if they encounter any major resistance when trying to operate them, they burn out quickly. Make sure your mechanism is working smoothly and your children don't hold the locking **** down while operating the switch. "Don't ask me how I know." This is why I went through so many actuators. The upside is they are cheap. Dirt cheap. I have a whole box of them. no kidding. I use them for all sorts of projects including adding remote electric choke for generators in RV's and outbuildings. (they work GREAT for this application) If they burn out, they're easily replaced and did I mention cheap? I actually considered mounting them in my PSD. As SBFD8 said it would be very simple; but I didn't want to chance encountering the problems I had in the cruiser. That being said, it appears others have used them without any problems and as I mentioned before, the actuator can be mounted in the PSD linear with the action of the rod, where the cruiser took about 4 bends in the rod and mounting 30 degrees from linear. The choice is really yours. Both methods will get you what you are desiring.....working PDL's!! I have pasted a link to the place where I get my actuators. I hope it works.

I hope this helps.

http://www.partsexpress.com
go to the above site and enter "330-010" in the quick search (It's the part number for the actuator)

 

Well I went E-baying and I now found all of the door locks with the remote start I've been looking for and it under a 100 bucks.

 

The Door actuators are new you have to drill a small hole to mount them, the rods are metal and they have an adjustable clamp so they do not go to full extension. These are just the actuators with 2 mires coming off of the they just work with the power wires you have on your old ones. You just leave your orginal ones alone and mount these so the rod is inline with the orginal actuators. I have had mine in and working perfect for about a year and a half the other ones I did have been working for about a year with no problems. I will try to find an auction and post the item number so you can check them out.

 

I searched for Door lock actuators and found many.
ebay # 5828437663
4 door lock actuators for $ 13.99



Car audio places sell these for $20 ea same ones that they use when you have an alarm installed and you do not have elec. door locks

 

Thanks a bunch! Now I need to decide if I do this or mess with all of the wiring headakes associated with a remote start.

 

$42.95 on the Genuine Ford Parts site. www.parts.com

 

Okay, I have the small electric motor apart, and I'm trying to find this PTC relay. Is it the small rectangular piece off to the side of the plastic casing, that looks almost like a brush with steel on either side? First time messing with someting like this....

 

That is the correct piece to either remove and solder jumper in or wrap in foil as many have done.