DIY: door actuator
 

Here is my DIY for those of you who want to remove/fix your door lock problems (clicking/whirring/buzzing)

This DIY contains pictures that refer to the rear left door of a 1996 Honda Accord EX Sedan.

Hopefully, I will get around to doing the front doors soon and will make a DIY for the front if there is interest. Hope this helps somebody.

http://www.auburn.edu/~ramirfa/dooract.jpg

Awesome DIY; Thanks!

If you get to the front doors, please post! I spent 3 hours and most of my sanity trying to get to the actuator; I eventually got it and fixed it [it had a rubber 'bumper' in the actuator that was causing it to not fully close- causing multiple attempts to close before it gave up].

This DIY helped a lot with the exception of the keylock; this has another arm that goes to the actuator that I could find no easy way of disconnecting. The back of the keyway also prevents the outside handle from being removed.

I am sure there is a simple way to do this procedure, but I was left scratching my head; and neither Haynes or Chilton have any mention of this procedure [unless i looked in the wrong place].

In the end, I bent the arm enough to get to the 3 screws holding the actuator onto the lock and then bent it back! Not something i would want to do again.

Also a note for idiots like me: the front door panels go on a lot easier if you remove the triangular cover from behind the rear view mirror section [little triangular thing]; they just pop off- they are friction held in place with a piece of plastic that slips into a metal clip.

Very nicely done... kudo's!

Thanks a ton, man! I was fed up with that whirring noise, myself, and I decided to take the door apart and yank that actuator out. Unfortunately for me the plastic spring compression holder snapped, so it's no door for me until I get down to the Honda shop.
Couldn't 'a done it so easy without ya'! I would've never guessed you could get a ratchet behind that thing, lol.
note: You don't have to rip that vapor barrier, for future reference. You can just use an x-acto and cut through the sealant around the edges. It cuts like butter, and it's still sticky when you put it back up. ::wink::
Also, you can jostle the actuator out of position and through the inside of the door by taking the front bolt off the handle and the bolt off the windshield railway. After you take those two bolts off, reach around the door and work the handle up and down while moving the actuator from side to side and down. There's no rhyme or reason, but I guarantee it's a lot easier than trying to get a ratchet behind it to take that bolt off. ::smile::

whatever works for ya.....glad it helped ::happy::

when i did mine i had to loosen the window frame to make room to get it out but maybe i did something else wrong before

It Works!!
 

96hacd is a genius! my door no longer makes noise unlocking and locking. not too hard to do.

thanks...just use some common sense when you fix it (try to understand how it works) and hopefully you won't have to deal with it again anytime...

I peformed a partial work around today, and that was simply disconnecting the power connecting cable to the buzzy actuator. I have a 95 Honda Accord LX Coupe, Driver Side was the one that was Buzzing.

I took the interior door panel off, which is somewhat easy (make sure you remove the interior BLACK Plastic Triangle up near the rear view mirror, it pulls off, if you don't take it off it makes it nearly impossible to put the door panel back on.) there are 2 main screws in the main door handle and 1 near the chrome handle release. The rest just pops, pulls up and off... then in the middle is a gray connnector that needs to be disconnected. It's about 1 1/2 inches in size, kinda hard to get it to pull apart while holding the interior door panel, but it can be done. I then made sure by turning on the car that it was the correct cable and everything still worked. (there are other connectors in the door so you might need to try a few to get the correct one) Also, plastic mositure sheild may need to be removed to get at connector. AND Manual Door Lock won't work with Keys when Door is Open! Took me a good 30 mintues to figure that out. I had thought I didn't have the door back together correctly since manual lock wouldn't work with my keys, I closed the door and it worked fine. Duh!

My Driver side lock now works manually, No BUZZ! and passenger side door still auto locks as normal. SO... Moral of story is... A new Actuator costs about $78 from AutoZone, a real Honda Dealer is about triple that or $215. God knows what they would charge to fix it. $400 - $500? eBay doesn't seem to have many actuators for this year range 94-97. Setting up an eBay alert didn't help much. So leaving it as a manual lock is fine since this car is getting up in age.

Hope this helps someone out...

Andrew

hey if u get done with the front door can u post cuz my has that buzzing nosie when i lock the doors and i hate that

^^^^ what happen to the original content???

is the problem starting for you too?

yes did it happened to you too?

yeah but i fixed it a while ago when the DIY was up. ill try to help you as much as i can if youd like

did you use aftermarket part or oem?

is there a way i can remove the actuator without remove the door handle?

thanks