Sliding door lock has seized, door stuck open help

[AlanR]

Hopefully someone can help.

I tried to lock my sliding door from the inside last night and the black knob jammed halfway down and the door didn’t lock. This has happened before, and previously I’ve been able to free the mechanism by opening unlocking/locking the door with the key.

This time, the mechanism is jammed solid and I cannot move it at all. If I use the key, I can turn it anti clockwise, but not clockwise.

In the process of playing around and trying to free it I’ve managed to close the catch at the rear of the slider, and the door will now obviously not shut.

Does anyone know if theres an easy way of freeing up the lock? I’ve drowned it in WD40 overnight and its still jammed today?

Also, if I remove the door panel, can I manually move any of the rods to open the rear catch, and see if I can get the door to close?

Cheers,

Al

[shortbloke]

Im sure someone with more experiance than me will be along soon to add comment, but I've recently had big problems with my sliding door and hijacked many a thread about sliding doors, but have pretty much sorted my problems now myself. I ended up taking ALL the locking mechanisms off and gave all a good de-grease and lube, and put back together again (actually easier than I thought!). All in all this experiance has given me a better insight in how the whole locking/latching mechanism works. Mines an early van (82) so might be different for you.

MY understanding....
The rear middle latch is conntected to a cable that runs between the back and the front locking mechanisms on the inside of the door connected to each by 2 small circlips, there is a big hefty coil spring on the rear locking mech, so you wont budge the rear latch by hand, when u "turn" the inner or outter handle its normal function is to pull that cable under tenstion, opening the rear latch, till it clicks/stays open (closes again snapping shut when it hits the rear striker plate when you close the door). You can adjust this cable with a couple of small spanners to increase/decrease the tension. Could be just the cable needing adjusting to add more tension etc.

Dried grease in all parts wont help, there was a LOT on mine, and its well worth a de-grease and re-grease, personally, If you have a Haynes like I did, follow the step by steps to taking each part off and then clean each by hand and putting back together again, it is not too difficult (hey I did it!), and it was the only way i could get all the dry crusty grease off my bits... oh er!

I did this last weekend, as my door would not shut and at one point the rear latch was "stuck" open. Now the door shuts much much better and doesnt sound like im denting or smashing something each time! Hope this helps a bit, any question just ask.

[CovKid]

You can degrease much of the lock merchanism in situ using white spirit. Agree on old grease. In the winter I oil everything as the lower temperatures tend to stiffen grease and make catches respond too slowly - hence the common refusal to shut in extreme temperatures.

[AlanR]

Cheers, I'll have a play, and hopefully be able to free up the latch but my biggest issue is that the black locking knob inside the van is completely stuck down. I've tried pursueding it with a few taps of a hammer and it won't budge. Feels more like something physically preventing it from moving.

[DavidPallister]

The black knob unscrews, whip it off and have a look to see if anything is jamming it, and drown the mechanism in WD40 whilst the knob's off

Dave

[AlanR]

Right, post lunchbreak bodging update.

I've managed to free up the black knob, and removed the panel (B4STARD of a job, nearly every single allen headed fitting rounded off). The rear catch is still stuck in the locked position, despite me pulling on the cable whilst pulling the door handle to open as well. I ran out of time, but hope that by adjusting all the slack out of the cable, I'll be able to get this to work,

cheers
Al