Anybody had this prob.with door locks

Power door locks in 82 CE.When the door locks are activated the pass. door lock will remain locked until I fool with the switch a bunch of times and then it will unlock.The switch itself works but the lock knob will not move far enough.Also the key won't unlock the door from the outside.I had the door panel off to have my power window motor replaced and told the guy to grease the lock stuff,that didn't cure it.Now I don't dare lock my car because of this.I hope somebody here has been there before.Thanks.

The lock on my 70 was worn to the point that the key would no longer unlock the drivers side door. There was no fixing the existing mechanism on my lock cylinders. I just spent the money and bought new lock cylinders for both doors. Probably not what you wanted to hear but this was the fix for mine. BTW, mine were manual locks only.  

Sounds like a similar problem I had which I termed
"sluggish door locks." In my case it got harder and
harder to turn the key in the drivers door to unlock it, to the point where I was worried I was going to break the key.

Anyway to cut the story short, if you take the panels off the door, disconnect the rod from the key lock, unbolt the electric door lock actuator, and unbolt the "swivel" (the rods go to this half way across the door - you can't see it as its inside the door, but the the bolts (two if I remember rightly) are the ones roughly in the centre of the door panel - just undo them) and the whole lot will come out in one piece through the
access hole in the bottom front of door (cover panel
removed of course.)

Once its all out, clean all old grease and gunk off all
rods, pivot points, end points etc from start to finish.
I then applied a smearing of light new grease to any
pivot/contact points, put it all back in, and it was sweet.

My conclusion was that it doesn't take much gunk and
aged (hardened) grease around the rods and pivots to
make them sluggish - whether it be by key or by
electric actuator.

BIG HEADS UP: Don't dissassemble any part of the
actuator. There's nothing in there to usefully play
with, but there ARE spring loaded little bits just
waiting to leap out at the first opportunity and
disappear somewhere on your garage floor.



Hope this helps !
Kiwi Chris

I agree with CeeDee, samething happened to mine. Cleaned it all out and it worked like a charm. I waited untill I had to crawl out the window to get out. I wouldn't wait till then.