Weird power lock issue

[snowesty]

My van seems to want to stay locked. Maybe it's scared or something.

When I unlock a door, the knob goes up, only on that door, and then immediately locks itself again. If I open the door fast I can get in, but the power lock keep cycling (click......click.....click) trying to relock it. If I hop in and close the door, it immediately re-locks and stays that way. The only way to unlock all the doors is to pull up the two front door locks at the same time. (not sure what prompted me to try that one...)

Any ideas?
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Fritz - '86 Syncro Tintop, Camper interior
Toaster - '91 Multivan Westy, 4sp.

[Dingchowping]

http://gowesty.com/library_article.php?id=314
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TTFN,
Adam

"For once you have tasted flight,
You walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward;
For there you have been,
And there you long to return."
-Leonardo da Vinci

[powderedwaters]

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=245022&highlight=central+lock
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89 VanagonGL Hannover Edition 2.1 AT

[snowesty]

Ding, thanks for the gowesty link. Guess I need to look for an actuator now...
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Fritz - '86 Syncro Tintop, Camper interior
Toaster - '91 Multivan Westy, 4sp.

[IrideWheelies]

when this was happening to me it turned out to be a broken wire. It was the white one.

In my case it was broken near where the wire entered the cab from the door, right by the fuse box on the drivers side.

there are only a few wires in the power lock system - don't get discouraged!
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89' Dove Blue Syncro Hightop

[Dingchowping]

[VwMomofthree]

Wow, you gave me such a laugh with the image of you trying to get in the car. LOLOLOLOL

[koolmoe]

[snowesty]

[syncrodoka]

You can always take apart the actuator and try to clean up all the contacts with naval jelley before spending money on replacements. The actuators in a eurovan are will work if you swap out the connector- if you go the junkyard route for a replacement. You can always disconnect the actuators and go with the key until you get time to fix it. Good luck.

[MIKEL67]

My 90 Carat seems to have the exact opposite problem. When I lock a door from the inside they magically unlock, and when I use the key from outside they both go down in the lock position then again like magic they unlock. Just bought the vanagon 2 weeks ago and havent read any of the other threads. It sounds like a simple problem to resolve if/when i take the time to track down the problem.

[Californio]

In some cases the actuators can be saved. What I did is blew in various cleaners through the holes (carb cleaner, starter fluid, etc.) to get whatever corrosion and crap on the inside off, then blew out with compressed air, then sprayed in some WD-40.

Once I verified that they were working, I also repaired the rubber boots with silicon.

One year later, no problems...

[davideric9]

I had broken wire for the door speaker. I unplugged all the wires and pulled the rubber boot out of the van as well as the wires (still hanging on the door) and made the repair thus saving the rubber boot.

If you have one bad front door lock actuator (or broken wire) then you get the cycling problem because they "talk" to each other. Unplugging the working one will stop the cycling.
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1987 Syncro Westfalia, stock (bought 1994)
1986 Syncro Westfalia SVX, 3 knob (bought 2008)
1987 Westfalia (bought 2010)
1988 Wolfsburg GL (bought 2012)

[ourv12]

Yep yep yep..... I had the same issues with my power locks. I thought I needed a new actuator. Turned out to be broken wires inside the rubber boot covering all the wires running to the door near the hinge. It was a pain to repair them but now my power locks work like new again!!!