95 EVC sliding door not consistently unlocking with power locks

[bcolins]

I removed my sliding door inner panel,....replaced the door lock actuator with a new aftermarket unit from Amazon,....but the lock is still not consistently unlocking with the key in the driver's door lock. It appears that the latch mechanism is not lifting up far enough for the door to open after the whole vehicle is unlocked with the key in the driver's door.

I cleaned the latch/lock mechanism out with brake clean with it still in place in the door,.....then applied some lithium spray lube. Works sometimes,.....but not all the time.

Wondering if this is a known issues with a recognized fix?
Brian in Austin

[kourt]

Have you cleaned the slider electrical contacts? See this thread for what I'm talking about.

On my van, I took some Deoxit and a brass brush to the contacts on the B pillar and the spring loaded pins on the slider itself.

Also, yes, if your slider door card is not aligned correctly, the resistance on the lock post on top of the card will keep it from working reliably. You can diagnose that pretty easily by removing the plastic post cap and the square bezel around it, and see if the situation improves.

kourt

[bcolins]

[bcolins]

[HeyCrutch]

Don't know if this is your issue but it was mine ...

Lock plunger knob was getting hung during it's travel up and down - not a ton - just enough that it would trigger the fail-safe that's built into the system, and the plunger rod would bounce back up (which in my case meant the front doors were locked but the sliding door was not).

The only true solution for me was to get the trim panel properly fitted - and that meant removing it so that I could do it. Of course the moment I did most of the clip attachments fell off. So I followed the thread that's here on TheSamba that gave me the step-by-step to clean up the panel's clip glue points - and then I used JB weld to permanently fix the plastic pieces onto the trim card. Put in mostly all new plastic spring clips (about half were broken).

*** The most important step in this whole process is dealing with a particular part of the trim panel itself. It's a formed piece of cardboard that is glued under the upper inside lip of the trim card and it has 4 openings, two of which are supposed to slide under metal clips that are attached to the top of the door (just under the glass) - IMPORTANT - if the trim panel doesn't slide under these 2 metal clips then the entire top of the trim panel will be pushed away from the metal (towards the interior of the van) - and THIS is what pulls the lock plunger rod away from it's proper sliding point (pulling it further into the van away from the glass). So even if the knob seems centered in its grommet, it still might be out of alignment. Getting this done correctly was the actual FIX to my issue.

here's a photo of the piece of the trim panel that I'm talking about - in these photos it was completely removed from the main panel (because it had come loose to begin with). I wanted to see exactly how it fits when done properly (because it's 100% out of sight when you are apply the trim card/panel - since it's re-gluded back to the trim panel)

It's Very Important that when you're re-mounting the door trim card/panel that you start by ensuring the top of the trim panel slides into these metal clips. At the same time make sure you're lock plunger rod is emanating from the proper hole (remove the grommet to make this easier - add the grommet and knob back as the last step).

----------------------
Here's a photo of the trim panel/card so you can see where I re-glued the upper cardboard piece (held in place by spring clamps until it had cured - at the top of the photo).

[bcolins]

That was exactly the issue on my 2003 MV,....but when I removed the panel on my 95,.....AMAZINGLY, NONE of the clips broke or fell off, where on my 2003 they ALL fell off and had to be re-glued. I used E6000 to re adhere them.

I may have created my own problem after replacing the actuator and cleaning and lubing the latching mechanism. Testing it with the door card off allowed the latch push knob/rod to flop around in the metal door frame opening and the threads on the rod may have been catching on the edges of the metal opening. I re-assembled the door card and although it is working more consistently, for the first 3 or 4 turns of the key in the driver's door lock with the key, the sliding door actually does the REVERSE of the all the other locks,.......actually locking when I unlock the vehicle and then unlocking when I unlock the vehicle,.....after 3 or 4 lock/unlock sequences, the sliding door lock then falls in line with the other locks,....unlocking with the other locks and locking with the other locks.

Any thoughts on this? Is something still binding somewhere?

By the way, I didn't see the two metal clips you mentioned when re-installing thd door card,.....but the top edge of the card does seem to be properly in place.