Ford Explorer door locks

A friend has a 1997 Explorer four door. Recently one of the rear door power locks started giving intermittent problems. He could hear the switch activate, and the locking post would move a bit, but it would not unlock. He couldn't even pull the lock post up. The inside door handle would also not unlock the door, though it normally would. Now, both doors are doing the same thing. He can't remove the door panels with the doors closed. A dealer gave him an estimate of $300 when he took it in with just one door giving the problem. Anyone got any ideas? If he uses a "slim jimmie" to pop the locks, will it damage the mechanism?

Chuck

<font color="red">"If he uses a "slim jimmie" to pop the locks, will it damage the mechanism?" </font color>

I'm wondering if that would even pop the lock.
If he couldn't pull the knob by hand on the other door, I don't think a slim-jim will work.

I had an 1989 Ford Ranger, shared some of the same sheet metal with a few of the Explorers in that era. Anyway, I had a similiar thing happen on mine. I was able to open the door with the inside handle, although with considerable more effort than normal. I went ahead and forced it open. Did not hurt anything on mine. The electric actuator had siezed on mine. On mine the actuator spins a threaded rod up and down to work the lock pawl in the latch mechanism. The actuator has a rubber boot or balloon covering it that had come apart and let water and dirt into the motor.

If you can figure out which of the little levers on the latch is the lock pawl you can push or pull it to unlock the door. A locksmith uses a couple of wedges between the outside glass and weatherstripping at the base or belt of the door to get some room to work in. Slips a pen light down into the door to see and then takes his little tool and flicks the lock pawl. I have done this a couple times on my Honda. You get pretty good at it when nobody else is home with the other set of car keys and you just locked the keys in the car on Sat. night.

I used a couple of 1" putty knives as wedges, slip the blade between the glass and weatherstripping and push in until the handle is against the glass and the blade is pushing the weatherstripping out. Do this a few inches apart and work in the middle. Shine your flash light down into the door so you can see the latch mechanism. Being dark outside helps with the background light so you can see into the door easier. I bent up a coat hanger to push or pull the lock lever on the Honda. I cant remember which way it went, up or down, that was a couple years ago. If your carefull I don't think you will hurt anything, especially if you can see what you are doing. It will be a tight fit to see in there, rolling down the window might help to see in there too.

If his problem is the actuator, look on the net to compare prices if you buy a new one, my prices ranged from 35 to 55 for the actuator.

After thought here, follow the rod from the outside lock in the door down to the latch to see where the lock lever is.

good luck

Gary

I just had this problem this week 1998 Ford Explorer Sport, my driver door would not open, unlock with power lock , or even with the actual key. Well after 4 days of climbing out of the passenger door like Starsky &amp; Hutch in the older days I finally could not take it anymore of crawling out of the passenger door while putting gas at the gas station in front of a lot of people. So I finally took it today to my friends body shop, he took off the mechanism I bought A new one at the dealer 38.00 dollars but his workers took about 3 hours to install it. Another 50.00 bucks for labor so I thought by spending $90.00 it was too much but I would pay it anyday instead of crawling out of the other door

If the accutator is causing it to hold the lock back I wonder if you disconnect the battery or pull a fuse and it might be easier to work from there.
I had a simlar problem on a nissan maxima but the doors opened I took the panel off and disconnected the wires from then on I had manual locks.

Hi - my 1998 Ford Explorer Sport is having this exact same issue - the passenger side door will not unlock even when I push the button. Key does not unlock it. I have no clue what part to get - is it the "actuator"?

Today we took out the door panel and got into the door, we saw a tiny spring had broken. Do we need to replace the whole arm? Please let me know, also where I can purchase this online for a good price.
Thanks,
Chris
eli_button@hotmail.com

I totally missed this thread. I have a 2000 Ford Explorer Sport model that I bought at an auction. It's been a great car, except for this exact same issue. The driver's door won't open with key or the remote. I have to use the remote to open the passenger door, and reach over to pull the driver's door handle. 2 or 3 tugs on the inside driver's door handle, and it does finally open. Does anyone have an idea how much a body shop would charge to fix this? I'm really tired of having to open the door this way.

In addition, the electric locks sometimes lock themselves when no one is in the car. Being that I got it at an auction, I only have one key, and it has the key with the computer chip in it, so a second key costs something like $100. On our farm, we leave the keys in all of our vehicles, but I always have to take the key out of the Explorer, because it has sometimes locked itself with the key in it. I have a friend who's good at using a slim jim to open it, but if he's not around I'm locked out of my car. I HATE electric locks!!!!!