Great thread. SUBSCRIBED!

 

I used a conductor out of Romex house wire. Worked perfectly... until someone (she will remain nameless) held switch down waiting for window to roll down. And held.

So now I need new motors. I haven't seen where anyone has found replacement motors yet, so looking for new actuators.

Any experiences with the ones from Dorman? (Left: 746-148, Right: 746-149)

Or the ones being sold by 1Aauto? (1ADRK00002)

The Dormans can be found for around $30 each, and the set sold by 1Aauto is $55 for 1 each L and R.
Are the the exact same design with same reliability, or improved?

 

I don't think anyone sells the motors to the public. Nameless will have to ease up on the switches.

 

So now you have learned after this mod to NOT hold down the button. The thermistor is the heat resistor that protects the motor.

but sometimes you have a holding the button.

 

I believe her when she says she didn't mean to.... We had been on the road a long time so fatigue was a factor. Just forgot about being careful.

Anyway, to maintain marital harmony, I ordered and will be installing new Dorman actuators ($62 for both, delivered). I've always had good luck with Dorman stuff, so I'm hoping these will be as good or better than stock. I'll let you all know if the cases look like they're from original molds or reverse engineered.

 

I bought a couple aftermarket ones and did the fix instead because they were not like OEM. They had limited crank swing so you couldn't lock them by hand. I noticed it beforehand and didn't use them. (resold them on eBay). I hope they didn't mind the difference.

 

Thanks op and all the other contributors!!! Fixed three out of the four doors (SD 250 CC). The door lock that this fixed didn't correct I was rushing myself and was a little impatient and I don't think all the gears got lined up before closing the case. Either that or the actuator was dead before I began. I pull it apart again before buying anew one. Thanks again.

 

First of all, thank you SO MUCH to the original poster(s) who contributed to this excellent thread. It's going to save me a lot of money.

I'm half way through this on my driver side door. Got the mechanism out, and the actuator is sitting on this desk next to me. I've inserted $0.01 worth of copper, into the right spot, zip tied the whole thing together, should be good to go.

My question is this. Is it even possible to reassemble the motor with the cap on 180 deg. wrong? On my motor - and it looks like the other pictures show the same - the cap only goes in one way. There's a relief on the metal shell, into which a larger piece of plastic on the cap fits. As far as I can tell, to put the cap on backwards would require forcing the extra plastic notches into the non-relieved part of the metal shell.

Mostly, I'm asking this to be double sure I haven't misread something earlier in the thread. I've actually read all 28 pages - it's why I'm up so late!

 

You can get it backwards and it will lock instead of unlock. The part# on the metal bell go down and the contacts go up.

 

I was worried about the same thing when I did mine. When I started on the first motor I scored a line on the cap and the metal housing of the motor to make sure that I got them back together the right way but once I got them apart they could only go back together one way. I have an 01 F-250 and the cap on the motor had a notch on one side so it wouldn't have gone back together if it was backwards. Also the motor had the pins to power the motor only on one side so it couldn't have gone back together any other way.

Once I saw those two things I just assumed that the different years of trucks must have different styles of the motors. HTH

 

It does help - thanks a lot for that. I thought I might have missed something. Mine definitely only goes together one way. Well, I suppose I could put the motor back together backwards if I forced it, but it would be difficult.

Now let's hope I can figure out how to reassemble the jigsaw puzzle of rods and snaps to get the door to open and close properly...

 

You don't need to remove any door handles or that cable in there.

 

Yeah, I never was able to diconnect the cable so I just swung the whole unit out and did the repair with the actuator dangling from the cable. I did remove the outside door handle to get a better view of what I was doing.

Does anyone know if there is a detailed picture tutorial on this fix? If not I'll try to get some pics when I take apart the passanger door again. I know there are a few pictures in this thread but none of the whole process.

 

Like everyone else has said, this may be the best "cheap fix" I've ever found out about! Driver side door is now working flawlessly, and the lock mechanism works with authority. I'm not married, so I don't think I'm at risk of "someone" leaning on the switch and burning the whole thing up. All this, for $0.01 per door!

Here's something I learned while doing mine - it may go without saying, but I thought maybe I should mention it anyway. Before you reassemble your inner door panel, make SURE everything moves freely. The inner door handle, outer door handle, key mechanism, and the lock/unlock operations from inside the truck. The first time I put the thing back together, I found that the interior lock push/pull thing wasn't moving as freely as it used to. Turns out, the cable from the interior door handle to the latch mechanism was routed the wrong way around it, causing it to try to hang up a bit. I detached the push/pull lock thing, routed it correctly, and all is well. It's tough to see in there, so depending on how you've taken your door apart, it's an easy mistake to make.

I did the same thing with respect to the cable. My mechanism just dangled from it while I removed the actuator.

The pictures I attempted to take turned out useless. Between the bad lighting, and the lack of access to the interior of the door, I was unable to get any photos that would be of any help to people. They all looked like a picture of a door with my hand stuck in it.

 

Thanks for attempting to get some pictures. 4 cents? You paid too much, I just cramed tin foil in the contacts.