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Rear Door Lock


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My rear door has stopped unlocking with the central locking.

I can open it with a key - though there feels to be no spring in the action. The actuator is still moving and turning the arm - but the manual latch on the lock isn't going all the way.

is this likely the lock or might it be the actuator ?

If it's the lock can I repair it ? I've seen kits for the non central locking ones that have 4 rivets and a spring, but nothing for these later ones.

Unfortunately the lock is £50 - so I want to make sure it's at fault before I consider replacing it.

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Sounds like it's the latch, the actuator only really pushes the locking tab until the torsion spring takes over and flicks the tab to the unlocked position. The spring kits you've seen should fit your latch though, the central locking latches only had minor differences to the standard latch and the spring that has broken is the same as supplied in the kits as far as i know. (although don't take that as 100%)

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Just a wee headsup on locks. Most locks (providing you can get into them) can be repaired after a fashion. Sometimes repaired properly, other times bodged. Don't write them off until you've had a poke around inside them.

Lubrication. A big issue. If you use normal lubricants they will certainly make the lock work, but they may also gather all the carp under the sun and hold it inside the lock creating a nice grinding paste that helps to wear the moving parts out even more quickly. Read more here.

Best to strip and clean regularly if possible and use a silicon dry lock spray or powdered graphite that you can get in a little bottle/puffer. When I was a builder/carpenter/glazier and lock fiddler I regularly stripped locks, cleaned out tumbleweeds and all the horrible mucky oily paste that'd accumulated and simply rubbed the entire mechanism with the lead of a very soft pencil I kept for this job (a 9B grade if you really must know). Locks worked a treat, the graphite was 'dry' so did not attract more carp and the locks worked fine for another few years. Best thing is to pick up a really soft pencil and have a go with it as a lubricator.

Here's the pencil wisdom so you can add this to your mental toolbox: here

And if all else fails you can always use it to write to Santa asking for a new lock for Christmas.

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That's very helpful too - thank you.

The lock can't be stripped witrout drilling rivets out - but the access and drainage is quite good. So I'll spray it clean with something like brake cleaner and then dry lube it as per your suggestion :)

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