For the past couple of months, I was facing a problem with the driver side door lock. The door would unlock smoothly (anticlockwise rotation) but would take 5-6 tries to lock it (clockwise rotation). This is a common problem with age on these cars where dirt/grime accumulates into the barrel jamming the wafers. Since I had the door cards off anyways ( not necessary to remove for the removal of the door lock ), I thought I might take out both the driver and passenger locks and clean them.
Remove the allen screw in the side of the door, insert key, turn clockwise 45*-60* and pull the lock out. Once the rod is free, just before the lock comes completely off the door, you need to let the key slide back into the original vertical position. This is the final step where the lock comes completely off the door. The problem was, the key wouldn't turn clockwise. It took me 4 hours, a lot of swearing, cuts on my hands and throbbing fingers to finally get the lock out. I tried to reach from the inside to help removing the lock but my fingers hardly made it to the rod.
Anyways, i had to wiggle the key left/right and the lock itself while pulling on the lock. It finally let go and came out. I've dipped the locks now in petrol. Gonna update the post while I start taking the pins out to inspect the damage.
The driver side lock. Remove the pin (right next to the spring) by tapping it out and the end section slides offs (rod + spring) and you are left with the cylinder. To remove the cylinder from the housing, simply insert the key and turn it 90 degrees and then tap the cylinder out.
After tapping the cylinder out, I found 6 of the wafers jammed up. Major grease build up inside the cylinder. I've cleaned the wafers ( took them out carefully placing them in a orderly manner ). Let the stuff sit in some gasoline and will clean out the curd and grease build up in a while and put everything back in together.
Some shots of a half cleaned housing. You can still see some of the black buildup inside. Managed to get all of that out.
Pictures of the cleaned out wafers sitting snug with the key inserted. Most of them had turned black when I got them out.
Some shots of the Passenger side door lock all cleaned up.
The locks are finally back into the car and working flawlessly. Cuts on my hands, throbbing fingers, extremely tired but delighted with what I've accomplished.
And a video of the passenger side door now back in place and working like a charm.
[video=vimeo;147018444]https://vimeo.com/147018444[/video]