My driver's side door lock is on it's way out.. It's *REAL* hard to turn the key sometimes.. The key, however, works fine in the passenger and hatch locks.. Can I swap these?

-Tesla

 

bump

 

Yeah! Hurry up and give us an answer. I have no key for the drivers door, only the passenger side. A real pain to lock the car up at nite and unlock in the morning. BUMP.

 

the lock cylinders are a different part number, but i think you just swap the little catch dealy thing over and it will work.

 

Thank you.

 

The lock assembly is the same exept for the stamped steel mounting bracket and the arm attached to the back of the cylinder.

BUT, I just went through this with the drivers door as well and I would recommend for all of the work to remove 2 interior door panels and 2 sets of connecting rods and 2 door handle assembles, that it would be WAY faster and better to just buy another lock assembly and re-key it to the keys that you have.

The driver's door gets the most use and by moving the passenger lock over all your doing is buying a little time before it goes, and leaving yourself with a lock on tha passenger side that may not be able to be used as a backup!

I purchased mine from the dealer for $56Cdn (probably way cheaper down south) and re-keyed it my self in just a few minutes.

BTW the part number for the 'illuminated' drivers side lock on a '91 is: FB01-76-220B

If your not sure about the re-keying I can provide details.

 

So your saying that I can take out the lock assy on the drivers side that I have no key for, and re-key it? To fit the key I have that fits all other doors? Yes I would be interested in how to do that.

 

Have you tried to spray any kind of lubricant in the keyhole? My key was hard to turn a few months back, and I sprayed some WD-40 in there and it's smooth as silk.

 

Take it out and take it to a locksmith. It like 15 bucks, that's what I do and still keep the same key.

C

 

Assuming that you have the lock out of the car and out of the handle...

1) remove the circlip that holds the arm onto the back of the lock and remove all of the attached pieces (metal arm, plastic arm, compression spring)

2) remove the round chrome cover at the other end by rotating it until the 2 indents align with the top and bottom of the lock and gently pry off

3) remove the trim plate, the door and it's spring taking care not to loose the pieces

4) insert any door key into the lock and while holding it so that the tumblers are at the top (you can see them through 2 small windows in the case) push on the back of the lock gently and the inner assembly will slide out (remember there is a small ball bearing and spring near the outside edge that acts to center the lock in the upright postion where you would remove the key, it's small and will be a bugger to replace if you loose it !) Also the tumblers and their springs could fall out if you are not carefull, so work over a towel and in an area if they do fall you have some chance of finding them! With the key in they won't fall out.

5) with the key still in place look at the top of the tumblers, also at the bottom, when set to the correct locations for the key in question they all will be flush, top and bottom. There are 7 of them and they can be interchanged with each other to match the key, normally you would only need to change those that are not flush, ie. one that it too high with one that is too low, repeating the process until they are correct and when the tumbler assembly is inserted into the cylinder with the key it turns freely.

6) lubricate the lock with the appropriate lubricant and reassemble.

I took all of the tumblers out and mixed them up, it took less than a couple of minutes to get them back in place to where the key I had choosen worked correctly.

 

ASHERWOOD....Thanks again. Sounds like a fun thing to do. Gonna put that locksmith on the welfare roles. Good write up.