How To Fix Failing and Sluggish Power Door Locks

Are your truck's door locks sluggish or failing? Then this article will help you save money by repairing your door lock actuators.

I just wanted to share a little fix I did for my failing / sluggish power locks on my 2000 F150 4X4. I searched the forums to find the cause of the problem. To my shock, Ford thought it would be a great idea to save us from ourselves by putting a substandard thermal barrier in the door lock motor to keep the motors from "burning up". Well, this barrier is designed to save the motor in the event the door locks are played with by the small gremlins that sometimes live in our trucks. Due to it being of such substandard quality, this barrier degrades and does what it was designed to do, even when it isn't needed. I hear the newer replacement motors have better quality parts and this "should not" be an issue anymore. So this is for those that have a few extra hours (to do both sides) and would rather spend the 85-120 bucks (in parts) on an extra set of lights for the brushguard. As always, do this at your own risk!!

I took the whole latch assembly out of the drivers door and quickly noticed it wasn't necessary. There is a write up on how to do the whole process in here or the other F150 site, ya just gotta search for it.

First, you do all the safety stuff. Make sure the brakes are applied, trans in park, have your tasty cold beverage handy, and the radio is on. Pull the door panel by pulling the handle cover, and the window/locks control panel. You also have to pull the trim above the door panel to get to the screw under it. There is a second screw under the handle. Once those TWO screws are out, lift the panel off. Disconnect the light before you get too far or you'll have to get a new connector (not fun)... Pull the barrier back and look into where the latch is.

Remove the window channel bolt to allow for more room to work. You can pull the channel out, but it is not needed. It's the lower bolt in this pic.

Looking at the lock motor assy with it out, you can see the locking tab that is just to the left of the zip-tie and on the bottom of the assy in this pic.

You have to get a stubby straight screw driver to lift this tab while you work the assy towards the outter skin of the door. I used a second screw driver to move the assy. This is what you will see with the assy out. The raised part in the center of this pic is where you need to place the stubby screw driver to raise the tab.

Once you have the motor assy out, take it over to your work bench to begin the operation. Will see all the plastic rivets covered in some sealer. The sealer comes off rather easily. I use a screw driver to pop the plastic rivets, by going in between the two halves and giving a little twist. They aren't hard to pop, but DO NOT disturb the metal rivets at the far end! Open up the assy carefully so as to not bust the metal rivets. You will see the small motor at the end where the connector is. Pull that out, trying not to disturb anything else.

I used a small phillips screw driver to bend the tabs that hold the motor together. I also had to take the gear off, and tap on that end until the small round "bearing" came out of the case. This is the motor in four of the five main parts: the case, the connector, the windings, and the crap thermal do-thingy. The white gear is the fifth part that was busy during the photo shoot.

And this is where it goes, standing up for everyone to see.

This is the difficult part. Most will say there needs to be some resistance for this motor, but I am gonna see how long it will last without any resistance. I read in another thread that three to eight ohms is good, but don't quote ME on that! It would be very easy to stuff a small resistor in the small space provided for the thermal peice. I used a solid, cut-to-fit piece of metal. Cleaned all the motor pieces up, and used some sealer to keep the motor together. Put the motor back in, and zip-tied the assy, along with some sealer on the plastic rivets.

Then reinstall on the latch assy, making sure the rod on the lock motor is lined up with the locking arm on the latch. There is a hole right below the yellow connector that the rod needs to sit in.

This is not seated all the way. Once lined up, push the lock assy on until it sits flush. Test the doors to make sure all is well, and button it back up!

Hope this helps someone! After four months my locks are still going strong.

Thanks to member 00red5dot4liter4x4 for donating this article! Original forum thread.