How to remove door lock?

[Benji]

Hi Guys,

Just came across this forum. looks like a good crowd of people.
I've got an 1989 535i Auto Right hand drive, and I'm having some problems with the locking mechanisim on the drives door. The drivers door won't lock.

If i put the key into the drivers door and turn to lock it, the other doors locks go down, but then they all come back up again, if i turn the key a second time, then the other doors lock, but the drivers door still remains unlocked. Its the same when unlocking the doors but in reverse. So basically I have to turn key twice to get the car unlocked or locked.

And only way to deal with drivers door is to set the alarm, and even then I don't know if its on or not. Sometimes I open the driver door without unlocking the alarm doesn't go off. Other times it does. but that's a separate issue.

Another note is that the drivers door button won't go down at all. Seems like its stuck.

Sooo....today I pulled the door panel off and got into the door, but I don't know how to get the lock out. The actuator is working fine. I un-attached it and tested it just by pulling and pushing, and the other doors work as normal. i.e. I dont have to do it twice to get them to lock or unlock.

Next I unscrewed the latch part. (the bit that latches onto the door when you close it) and held that loose to see if thats was jammed and not letting the driver door lock and tested the locks, problem still exists. (I hope that paragraph makes sense)

I wanted to fulled remove the latch part, but it was still connected to the lock barrel part and I couldn't work out how to get it off. the connecting rod looked like it was attached with a nut, and the other end I couldn't see well enough.

So now I'm not sure which part/s is/are faulty and whether I can fix it/them myself or best to just get a mechanic to do it.

Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks in advance,

Ben

[andmd]

HTH.

http://www.bmw4life.com/doorLockActuator.htm

[Kalevera]

It sounds like you have worn trunk lid wiring (search it), which is confusing the lock actuators. You could also have a faulty microswitch -- Yellow two pin harness connector that sits with three other connectors by the latch mechanism. Do a voltage drop test, each pin on the switch side to ground, while attempting to lock the door, you should see a blip of current on one pin and a blip of current on the other pin when unlocking.

The driver's door will only physically lock with the door closed, so you either have to have the window down and be standing outside, or sitting inside the car for it to work.

I would put money on frayed trunk lid wires though.

[shogun]

this page will also help, look for doorlock microswitch
http://bmwe32.masscom.net/

[Benji]

Thanks for the replies, I'll have a look at those solutions next.

Also, is there some trick to disconnecting the linkage from the doorbracket to the doorlock mechanism? It looks like one end has a nut on it that looks painfully hard to get back on later.

Thanks again.

Ben

[dennyg]

I have the same problem. Funny thing is when I had a mechanic work on it problem swithced from passenger door to driver door. He then proceeded to make driver door manual and I have to use emergency method to unlock the driver door. Good thing is all doors lock and three unlock. Just a little annoying to have to unlock driver door by lifting up handle. I can tell it had frustrated previous owner cause inside door handle is sticking out a little like he pulled too hard on it and stretched cable. Someday when I have a garage I will take it apart and see if its mechanical or electrical.....good luck

[Benji]

Quick update,

I've eliminated the door latch as being faulty. The only part left that seems to be jamming is the actual key lock part. Has anyone else had this part jam up?

The rod that connects to the door latch part seems to be jammed in some way. Will pull it out when I can and try fix it.

Benji

[Benji]

Well I pulled the key lock part out to see if there was anything obviously jammed. Couldn't see anything unfortunately, but it does seem that part of it doesn't rotate as far as it should. I also think that the microswitch is dodgey. I tried pushing on the 3 pins in combinations found on this page:

http://bmwe32.masscom.net/johan/doorlock_microswitch/doorlock_microswitch.html

and found that the locks on the other doors lock and then unlock and vice versa. So from that I'm guessing that the timing is out in the microswitch as well as the jammed lock mechanisim.

Any thoughts? And also any ideas where to get a 2nd hand replacement in Sydney?

Benji