Wait a minute… I swear I read that you were able to acknowledge that there was movement upon hitting lock and then unlock. So the actuator is moving then…yes? Please verify.
Is the doors handle actuating the door latch ? Could you have held the door latch in your hand or in a vise and simulated locking and unlocking the unit… whilst also verifying that the lock hasp did indeed unlock after you simulated the door latch or handle pulling on the latch?
Basically you can bench test the latch before you install it to see if she functions…
Also what is the status of using the key in the lock on this mechanism?
This is one of those issues that are hard to guide via a computer desk…in person I just go thru all the possible tests of a latch without really thinking about what Im doing too much… Sometimes I can go thru 10 tests or theories in moments in order to suss something like this out. Hard to guide you from here I apologize.
@Honda_Blackbird
Thanks for reading carefully. Yes, you have it right. I did see movement in both directions. To be clear, the actuator locks the latch, but won’t unlock it.
That’s why I called my mechanic, I don’t see what the problem might be. He hasn’t gotten back to me yet, which is odd.
You have made a good suggestion, holding the switch out of the door while switching from lock to unlock.
As for the key lock - that seems to work fine and move freely, but you’ve made me realize I could be wrong on that. I’ll check it shortly and report back.
Thanks Blackbird, I appreciate your contribution to the process.
Roadtripper
No problemo… Dont bank on my contribution just yet… So far this week I’ve told someone they had an engine that they did not, responded to a 10yr old post and basically in general have not been as on point as I usually am.
Thankfully tho…these foibles have been localized to the virtual arena, however there is always time to show the real world what I am capable of… screw up wise. Be afraid…be very afraid.
I still think going to PNP is fun. Here in San Jose it’s located in an industrial area of course, but not a particularly unpleasant or crime ridden area. And I go there in broad daylight, right? Doesn’t feel at all unsafe to me anyway. I think the biggest problem a customer getting some parts would run up against there is maybe getting some of their tools stolen, were they to leave their tools in the yard unwatched. There’s some “regulars” there I see frequently who seem on the surface to just be hanging around. I think however those guy’s have a customer service role at PNP: If you want you can pay them a fee and they’ll crawl under the car and remove the part themselves for you, saving you the work of doing it yourself. Not sure about this latter point b/c I’ve always removed the part myself.
This reminds me of a funny story. I was at the Toyota dealership a while back looking to buy one of the windshield washer spray nozzles. You know the little plastic gadget that sits on the hood and sprays water on the windshield? They had one, but it was priced at $45 for a single nozzle, which I thought to be on the high price side. I decided to price that part at the inde auto parts place up the street a couple blocks. As I was leaving the dealership I noticed a car parked there with a nozzle very similar to mine, but not exactly. So I stopped to take a look at how that one differed from mine, maybe I could just use that one (i.e. that fit that make/model/year) instead of the exact part that fit my own Corolla . I was eyeballing the part from every angle possible when somebody I hadn’t noticed who was inside the car, he got out and was giving me dirty looks … lol … like “what you doing to my car!!” … I quickly explained I wasn’t gonna steal his nozzle and got out of that parking lot fast as possible … lol …
OK, I’m convinced now that the problem is mechanical, not electrical. The latch mechanism is made of two plates with slots which must line up in order for the actuator to push a plastic pin upward to link the two plates and then engage the latch itself. But something is keeping one of the plates from moving the last little bit of its travel, preventing the pin from moving upward. That’s what I had found at the start.
In hand, the plates align easily. Installed, they don’t. I can see what’s wrong, just don’t know why it’s happening.
On to other projects…
Do either of these actuators have enough strength to move the locking mechanism back and forth? Those actuators become weak with age, I replaced one Monday on a 2014 Lexus CT200.
@Nevada_545
Not sure I can answer your question, but it’s a plausible idea. I just think that there’s something preventing the plates from aligning, which as far as I can tell is not related to the actuator.
I had theorized that the lock mechanism was preventing full travel of the rod between the lock and the latch, but even with the rod detached from the lock, the movement is obstructed just a tiny bit.
The next possible suspect is the cable from the exterior handle. It appears to be limiting the travel of the one plate that’s a problem. As I write this, this seems like a likely explanation. I think everything is installed correctly, however if that cable were a bit longer, the plate would go where it’s supposed to go. But since I’m using the original cable, it is what it is.
So that points to the cheap exterior latch I bought from Amazon. If it were only a tiny bit out of spec for the attachment of the upper end of the cable, that would cause a problem. And IIRC, the attachment is metal, and I might be able to bend it slightly to gain more travel.
I’ll wait until the sun comes up to investigate.
Good news: the problem appears to be solved.
As I wrote in my previous post, I was suspicious that the cable from the exterior release handle might have been preventing one of the plates on the interior mechanism from fully returning to its intended position - it rotates on a pivot point - but was not retracting quite enough to align in the way it was designed to do. Unfortunately, it took me a long time to realize that the cable might have been the problem.
My first thought was to just reach inside the lift gate to the cable’s upper anchor point and try to manually bend the metal tab on the release handle where the cable attaches. Not sure it actually did bend, but when I tested the actuator, the latch unlocked properly, and the exterior handle worked. That anchor tab may later need a bit more bending with leverage applied gently with a tool, but at least I know the solution.
Thanks to all for chiming in with good advice.
Roadtripper