Okay, here is the latest in this saga – Thanks to input from re-guderian and RobRed, I located and removed the junction box and replaced all three door lock relays (all the same part). Worst job that I’ve ever undertaken by far. At 6’-2” & 230, I’m not exactly built for working in this location so after spending about 3 hours on the removal, twisted up like a pretzel and thinking I might have to go to the hospital, I paid a mechanic buddy to come over and finish the job which only took him an hour - show-off.
The relays were not the problem. Sorry mikgrail3, I was hoping that this was it too, especially since I had just spent $75 on replacing what turned out to be perfectly good parts. All of the locks quit working after 2 or 3 cycles – except one. Now for some good news, even though it involves admitting something that makes me look like an idiot.
I started on this adventure 2 months ago thinking that I had the well documented actuator problem that so many have written about. I even purchased new actuators and replaced the one in the passenger front door. This was a big job in which I managed to break the clip off of a $45 door lock clip wiring harness while in the middle of, so I had to wait a week for a replacement harness before I had it totally finished and back together. It was about 15 minutes before the wife and kids were to take off on a 4,000 mile road trip in the truck that finished the actuator replacement. I made sure that the new actuator worked the lock, but apparently I was so relieved that I had managed to get everything back together in time for their trip that I guess I didn’t cycle the locks several times to see if this one acted differently. In the mean time, while the truck was gone for 2 weeks, I kept reading posts and convinced myself that it was very unlikely that my problem was with the actuators because the locks in my vehicle stopped working on all of the doors at the same time after cycling the locks 2 or 3 times. How could 5 independent motors all quit working at the same time? There had to be a central cause, right? Even my mechanic agreed and suggested a relay as the likely root cause.
So, imagine how dumb I felt sitting there testing the locks after replacing the relays when all of the locks quit working after 2 or 3 cycles, just like always, except the front passenger door that I had replaced the actuator in 3 weeks ago. I must have cycled the locks 10 or 15 times and this one door worked perfectly every time. So, while it still doesn’t make any sense to me that all of the actuators started failing at the same time, I’m now going to replace the actuator in another door and then re-test. If that door also works after several cycles then I’ll finish the rest of them. I’m hopeful that now that I’ve done one that I can do the rest without breaking any other parts. I’ll post back after the 2nd door is finished. Enjoy your chuckle at my expense and thanks again for everyone’s input.
