Stuck door 60-series w/ power lock

[Luke77]

Yesterday I suddenly was not able to open my front door (driver side) anymore. It was completely stuck and I could not open it from the inside, outside or with the key.

Luckily I was able to remove the door trim from the inside. This gave me the ability to disconnect the solenoid and to pull really hard on the metal wire going towards the lock knob. After 2 minutes pulling up and down the door opened.

I took the lock assembly out and there were 2 problems:
1) the solenoid was not moving in and out very subtle, so gave some extra fiction in the system
2) the frame assembly (nr 900 on the picture) was touching the locking assembly slightly

I removed the solenoid, cleaned the lock assembly with lots of break cleaner and sprayed all the moving parts with lithium spray. When reassembling the parts I bend the frame assembly in such a way that it was absolutely not touchig the lock assembly anymore.

The door is opening and closing like never before! Feels like just-out-of-the-factory.

I will remove the solenoid on the passender side also, because I hate having parts in my 4x4 that can go wrong in the bush. Manual opening and closing is more offroad-proof.

 

[Hokierig]

I’m having a similar issue with my FJ62 driver door being stuck closed. Neither the inner or outer handle opens the latch. All rods and springs are working as they should, except maybe the return on the latch mechanism isn’t returning as smoothly as on the passenger door. I’ve lubed everything up with a white lithium lubricant and let it sit for a few days with no improvement.

Photos attached to show which part I’m talking about. Based on the images above from Luke77, it seems that this piece reaches around and engages the last action to open the latch itself. Both the outer handle and inner handle engage the post, but seemingly not enough to pop the door.

From what I can tell, the striker isn’t moving. Lifting up or pushing down on the door while engaging the handles doesn’t help. Pulling up on the lock while engaging the handles doesn’t help. Wedging a screwdriver between the post and the mechanism highlighted and pictured to add more leverage doesn’t do it either.

Really at a loss here. Hoping someone else has dealt with this and can provide other ideas on how to free the door up to open it.