anyone's s14 locks messed up? My driver door won't unlock.

[jt1583]

Mine have always acted kind of weird, but recently my driver door completely locked up. It is not able to be opened via the key, inside switch, or my last attempt, using a hanger stuck down the door panel ( I cant get the panel off with the door locked) and hooked onto the unlock mechanism pulling it up as hard as I can.

I'm stumped what to do now. Anyone ever have an issue like this or any idea what I can do?

When I try to unlock with the lever by the handle it just snaps back to locked position.

[theronin]

your actuator has locked up on you. mine did it on my passenger side. i had to remove the door panel while the door was stuck shut. its fun times :) ur gonna need to take ur driver seat out to do it.

[jt1583]

what do you do? just pull on it? Fortunatley I don't have any screws on it. Will it damage the panel? did you have to get a new actuator? if so where?

[s13silvia123]

youre lucky today that just happened to me last week when my mom someone did that to my car.

to take your door panels off.

inside the door handle should be a screw. unbolt that.


there might be a bolt on the door panel sorry i dont have a s14 but might be similar. if there is take it off. might look like a button flip it open and theres a bolt.

take some the door handle trims off

unplug the wires if your door is powered windows

to take the door panel off with no pain start at the bottom and use a screw driver or something flat to pop it off. then move to the top by the window.

hold on one side pull up on one corner then the next

there be a piece of plastic with some sticky stuff there open it dont tear the plastic cover.

look for a hole going where the lock is. put your hand in there and feel for a somewhat lever and pull upwards.

it should unlock. and your able to close your door again.

to put it back on slide the top part on first then

do everything above in reverse.


need pics i'll do a quick dimenstration tomorrow

[jt1583]

ive got to imagine its very hard to take door panel off with door close, atleast in an s14. It seems like the flat edges are sandwiched between the door and jam. As far as the lever, doest it look like this kind off?

is the lever your talking about the one I pictured? Because I tried pulling up on this with a hanger tool I made and no luck.

[theronin]

on mine i could pull the lever up but it still wouldnt unlock my door. i had to take it to a stereo shop and me and the tech fiddled with it for an hour or so until the damn thing came unlocked.

[jt1583]

my passenger side has always acted funny too. how hard is it to make a decent set of locks?

if its the actuator thats holding it back you think I can kill power to the actuator and it will release?

[projectRDM]

No, there is no power on the actuator until you hit the switch. Replace it with a known good one or lubricate all the linkage, you may find a frozen pivot or bent rod is the culprit.

[jt1583]

well i got it off pretty quickly but couldn't find anything on the inside to unlock the door. Well I found a few rods that from looking @ the passenger side I could tell should unlock it, but they wouldn't. Does this definitely sound like the actuator? I'm looking into locksmiths to help me out with this.

[projectRDM]

The actuator is mounted to the latch, lower portion of the door. You have to unbolt the door latch to get it out, if none of the linkage seems to be working right just pull it and verify it's the problem. It could also be the actual latch damaged.

[BillyTheChamp]

i just now had the same problem going on.. my latch hooked into place but wont unhook.. good thing i had the door pannel off before i closed the door.. but i still caqnt get it open.. is there a way to manually unlatch the latch? non of the rods are working either.. nor will a key unlock it..