DIY: Repair central locking actuator

Detailed descriptions of how to do things to your Liberty.

Re: DIY: Repair central locking actuator

Postby seanmau5 » Sat Jul 06, 2013 6:21 pm

Can you clarify what plastic you're referring too?
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Re: DIY: Repair central locking actuator

Postby nickoboi » Sun Jul 07, 2013 12:51 am

seanmau5 wrote:Can you clarify what plastic you're referring too?



So its my rear left passenger door, lock hasnt been working with remote for ages so finally decided to open it up, ive removed the door panel, unconnected everything but I can't get the actuator to come out because i have no idea where its locked onto the door. See the pic so you know where im up to :)

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Re: DIY: Repair central locking actuator

Postby seanmau5 » Sun Jul 07, 2013 3:52 pm

There should be 3 bolts holding it inside the door on the opposite side to where it sits. You have to take the whole latch & lock mechanism out to repair or replace.
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Re: DIY: Repair central locking actuator

Postby nickoboi » Sun Jul 07, 2013 4:00 pm

seanmau5 wrote:There should be 3 bolts holding it inside the door on the opposite side to where it sits. You have to take the whole latch & lock mechanism out to repair or replace.


are you 100% sure? cos those screws are damn tight and the tutorial says its 3 anchors you need to unpick, not screws :oops:
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Re: DIY: Repair central locking actuator

Postby seanmau5 » Sun Jul 07, 2013 4:13 pm

nickoboi wrote:
seanmau5 wrote:There should be 3 bolts holding it inside the door on the opposite side to where it sits. You have to take the whole latch & lock mechanism out to repair or replace.


are you 100% sure? cos those screws are damn tight and the tutorial says its 3 anchors you need to unpick, not screws :oops:


101%.. They are tight yes, but need to be undone to take the whole assembly out. Consider where the assembly is and right on the opposite side is those bolts ;)

Trust me..

EDIT - the walkthroughs is referring to the anchors that hold the outer casing on to the assembly.. Seems you have already done that inside the door.
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Re: DIY: Repair central locking actuator

Postby nickoboi » Sun Jul 07, 2013 5:29 pm

seanmau5 wrote:
nickoboi wrote:
seanmau5 wrote:There should be 3 bolts holding it inside the door on the opposite side to where it sits. You have to take the whole latch & lock mechanism out to repair or replace.


are you 100% sure? cos those screws are damn tight and the tutorial says its 3 anchors you need to unpick, not screws :oops:


101%.. They are tight yes, but need to be undone to take the whole assembly out. Consider where the assembly is and right on the opposite side is those bolts ;)

Trust me..

EDIT - the walkthroughs is referring to the anchors that hold the outer casing on to the assembly.. Seems you have already done that inside the door.


yeah, got it all out and couldnt open the stupid motor thing :angry2: so stuff it im just gonna get a new actuator the piece of crap
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Re: DIY: Repair central locking actuator

Postby seanmau5 » Sun Jul 07, 2013 6:14 pm

It's a non serviceable item so of course you can't open it. $220 from Subaru Aus..

Pry it open with a sharp knife, clean out the grease and shit, glue it back together.
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Re: DIY: Repair central locking actuator

Postby nickoboi » Mon Jul 08, 2013 12:11 am

seanmau5 wrote:It's a non serviceable item so of course you can't open it. $220 from Subaru Aus..

Pry it open with a sharp knife, clean out the grease and shit, glue it back together.



yeah i got open the plastic white part but its the actual motor that i cant get open, not that easy with a knife lol
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Re: DIY: Repair central locking actuator

Postby seanmau5 » Mon Jul 08, 2013 1:37 am

Use a tiny little screwdriver and carefully pry open the metal tabs holding it together.

Patience is a virtue.
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Re: DIY: Repair central locking actuator

Postby nickoboi » Mon Jul 15, 2013 10:11 am

seanmau5 wrote:Use a tiny little screwdriver and carefully pry open the metal tabs holding it together.

Patience is a virtue.



yeah tried that and stupid screwdriver snapped looooool :roll:
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Re: DIY: Repair central locking actuator

Postby Damienol » Tue Aug 06, 2013 8:34 am

Hi ALOC,

I have tried this fix in a coupe of different variations and have not had any luck. Below is detail on the steps taken. Any guidance in what I am doing wrong would be greatly appreciated.

Firstly I tried taking the server out and fully cleaning and reinstalling. I tried this on both of my back doors. With the cover open I can see the servo spinning it just doesn't seem to be spinning far enough. The conclusion I drew from this is that the servo is just too worn so I ordered 4 replacements off eBay.

Secondly, taking one of the new servo's (20mm armature) I ground the armature down to match that of the original Subaru armature and tested again. With the cover off the servo locked and unlocked the car. Bingo I thought. After putting the cover back on the locking mechanism failed to operate!!!!

I then took one of the original armatures and installed it in the new servo. This did not work at all.

Playing with the servo (new with the modified armature) in the plastic casing I noticed that when I moved the plastic gear manually the spring loaded mechanism did not flick back - until I flicked the servo out of the casing. With the Subaru servo installed in the casing I did not have this problem at all. On its own the servo spins perfectly in both directions. For some reason the servo and spiral plastic end seem to get locked in place when inside the plastic casing.

It has me stumped. I fiddled with the 2 rear doors for 4 hours last night. I am now out of any real bright ideas.

3 of the 4 doors don't lock at the moment. Tonight i am going to have a look at the door that does work and see if I can get any ideas.

If anyone has had any similar experiences or has some bright ideas please post a reply.



Cheers

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Re: DIY: Repair central locking actuator

Postby Damienol » Wed Aug 07, 2013 8:32 am

Spent another 5 hours looking into this last night.

3 hours in I thought I had nailed it with all 3 doors locking and unlocking perfectly. I packed everything up and did one last test and realized the driver door would not open. Doh!

After much stuffing around I worked out that if the plastic spiral does not sit perfectly on the armature it can move slightly causing the gear to get jammed. Conclusion is that you are better off using the Armature from the original servo if at all possible.

Tonight I will try and swap over the armatures and see what happens.

I know that I mentioned in my previous post that I had tried this and failed. I realized last night that when I opened the server up one of the brushes had fallen off. Lesson learned there is that you don't try and fix car doors while drinking beer.
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Re: DIY: Repair central locking actuator

Postby Nalnoc » Fri Aug 09, 2013 12:40 pm

nickoboi wrote:
seanmau5 wrote:Use a tiny little screwdriver and carefully pry open the metal tabs holding it together.

Patience is a virtue.



yeah tried that and stupid screwdriver snapped looooool :roll:


Get a metal skewer and dig away at the plastic behind the tabs on the motor. This will give your screw driver a lot more leverage.
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Re: DIY: Repair central locking actuator

Postby teK-- » Fri Aug 09, 2013 11:38 pm

Thanks for the laughs guys can't believe this thread still going strong, I guess these actuators are all getting to that age :)

When prying the tabs back on the motor casing I suggest rather than just levering them up, get the screwdriver under the tab and just twist it.
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Re: DIY: Repair central locking actuator

Postby Bargey » Mon Sep 02, 2013 6:27 pm

Just swapped my non-functional left rear door actuator over with the one I bought from the group buy and now have a totally functional central locking system once again. Thanks to the guide here it was pretty simple and I got it done in under half an hour. Much thanks to the OP and a few others in this thread for their help, and to seanmau5 and Hamish for organising the GB and showing me how to get my door trim off respectively. :)
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