I can hear the actuator working in the door but it is not locking/unlocking the door lock. Also... the lock in question on on the drivers side rear door (crew cab) and it sticks up taller / higher than the other locks.

How do you remove the door panel to get a look at it?

 

Door panel removal
That describes the front panel but the last pic and statement is of the rear, and it says it's basically the same procedure.
You need to search out the lock actuator fix. It involves tin foil, and many here have used it for a cheap fix. The lock actuators are designed to burn a resistor out over time and fail.

 

Can you just replace the resistor rather than bridging it?

 

I would imagine, but I haven't had to mess with it. Springer Pop(Marv) would be the guy on this forum I would ask that question. He knows all these little electrical intricacies, and I on the other hand, know about 2 important things about electricity: 1) it's magic and more importantly 2) It hurts when it get's on you.

 

Ill bet you probably can but if you bridge it you never need to worry about it again.

 

The front door locks stick up higher than the rear door locks.

 

I got this off the site awhile back. I don't remember who came up with it to give credit.

Fix Door Actuators

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.

 

That's the one I was referring to. Good find.

 

Any good info like that I try to copy to my computer for future reference. I always seem to remember reading about something I am working on, but can't find it when I need it so I started making copies.

 

Here's the thread with the instructions. Note post #20 has pictures.

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/4...cks-fixed.html

 

Ok.. so even though I can hear the actuator working, is this still the problem that will be remedied by the tinfoil repair job??

OR... will the actuator still sound like it is working but just not lock/unlock the door??? In other words if I hear it working can it still be broken?


Also just to clarify... the lock in question is sticking up higher than all the other ones.

 

anybody have the part # for this ?

 

I never got an answer on this.

"the lock in question is sticking up higher than all the other locks" Could it be just unattached somehow? The lock in question is the drivers side rear door.

 

IMO the tin foil fix should work for you.See post #10 in this thread and look at post #20 in the link. Keep us updated.

 

I re-read your last post and when you take off the door panel which you need to do anyway, you may find a linkage detached, simple fix then, otherwise just procede to the tin foil fix.