lock actuators

[TGUN]

My obs power locks seem to keep getting weaker and weaker. i oil them every now and then and it doesnt seem to help anymore. Do the lock actuator wear out before they go bad? or do you think i could have a short or something like that.

[someotherguy]

You didn't say what year but I'll tell you what I've ran into on several OBS trucks, the actuator is usually fine - it's the actuator rods, and the sliders, that have a problem.

If it's physically hard to turn the outside lock with a key, the slider is gummed up. Remove door panel, look at the middle of the inner sheetmetal for a pair of white plastic clips where the rods slide through. The rods just pop out of them (one is the lock, other is inside door handle), but be gentle, the plastic can be brittle and if you force it you might break the clip out of the door. Anyway pop the rod out, clean it with some brake parts cleaner sprayed onto a towel, don't spray it inside your door or it'll screw up your tint when it hits the glass. Wipe the gunk off the rod, spray a little white lithium grease on it and the inside of the clip, pop the rod back in and "work it" a few times.

If the outside lock isn't physically hard to turn, then the inside rod for the actuator may just be bent. The same thing happens to the inside door latch rod sometimes. They have bends in them that if they start to come undone, won't work well anymore. Might need to "re-kink" it a little.

Richard

[TGUN]

its a 97 srry. the outside locks are hard to turn so i will give that a try this weekend

[someotherguy]

Yep if the outside locks are hard to turn it's almost definitely the rod sliders. It happens sometimes, dunno why some trucks do it and a lot don't; but this happened to me most recently on my '94. When I bought it, it was ready to snap the key off in either door lock. A little cleaning and greasing made it like new.

Richard

[garcia946]

from what I ran across , yes the motors can go bad , even if you lube all the sliders up.
say the factory motors will lock but not have enough power to unlock ( that`s what mine were doing )
I replaced mine with aftermarket accuators wires up just the same and costs about a 1/3 of the price of a factory motor

[someotherguy]

I didn't say the actuators don't go bad, but weak actuators aren't going to make the key hard to turn. No sense throwing new actuators at it without doing the zero-cost maintenance of cleaning and greasing the sliders.

Richard

[TGUN]

from what I ran across , yes the motors can go bad , even if you lube all the sliders up.
say the factory motors will lock but not have enough power to unlock ( that`s what mine were doing )
I replaced mine with aftermarket accuators wires up just the same and costs about a 1/3 of the price of a factory motor

were the aftermarket actuators just from your local autoparts store?