Powerlock Actuator 1990 Bronco Fullsize
leob1
04-02-2005, 03:41 PM
My 1990 5.8L Bronco's driverside powerlock would not unlock the driver's door, but the passenger side would unlock. The drivers door would respond to the switch, but would not unlock or lock. Turned out it appeared like the actuator needed to be replaced. The actuator is riveted to the door just under the lock; mine was just dangling inside the door. It appeared as if a previous repair attempt had broken the actuator bracket. Part of the bracket was still in the rivet, the other half was hanging on the actuator; major headache it seemed, so I went to a dealer and things just got worse...
A dealer gave me an estimate of about $220 including parts and labor. You know what, screw the dealer, I did it myself for about $60 and ordered new parts from 1A Auto.
I had a difficult scenerio with this job, because of a lack of info on situations similar to mine, not understanding other people's directions and because everything was damaged from the start, even the old rivet; Murphy's Law. I had to buy a new actuator rivet from a Ford dealer which was $2.40. I found a body shop that drilled out the old rivet and riveted the new actuator in for me for $7. They used a two handed air powered rivet gun. Good luck using anything else, he struggled slightly, even with that heavy rivet gun.
Anyways, I had the door panel off and held the actuator in the correct position as he riveted it. Only one problem, the OEM replacement rivet would not go through the new actutator bracket's rivet hole! We just drilled out the bracket rivet hole slightly and the rivet went through. Moving the actuator into place was a little difficult as well, but I managed.
From my experience, keep in mind that replacing the actuator DOES NOT mean replacing the rivet and the white actuator bracket, unless you want to go through my scenerio. If that actuator holding bracket(thats riveted to door) is not damaged, leave it there and remove the old actuator from it; much easier that way. Then put your new one on the existing bracket. There is a plug at the bottom of the actuator that you will also have to deal with, but thats easy.
The actuator sits in that holding bracket by resting on two black rubber grommets, or 'donuts'. The actuator will slide off bracket(bracket is riveted to door..) at the grommets with some careful(bracket is plastic) downward pushing by the way(the bracket openings point down). It takes a little while, but it goes. The metal rod going into the top of the actuator comes out of the door lock by pulling the actuator out and away from the hole...towards the front of the vehicle, between the window channel and the outside of the door; there was no other way. It felt like I was about to break something doing that, but everything was fine. Careful with the actuator wiring, I had mine tangled around the window channel. My window had caught on it after I thought everything was fixed!
By the way, you might want to buy some new door panel pins to get that snug fit back on the panel. Two boxes were about $4.50 at Schucks.
Here is another link:
http://www.ford-trucks.com/article/idx/0/026/article/1987__1996_FSeries__Bronco_Power_Door_Lock_Actuato r_Replacement.html[/url]
Good luck.
A dealer gave me an estimate of about $220 including parts and labor. You know what, screw the dealer, I did it myself for about $60 and ordered new parts from 1A Auto.
I had a difficult scenerio with this job, because of a lack of info on situations similar to mine, not understanding other people's directions and because everything was damaged from the start, even the old rivet; Murphy's Law. I had to buy a new actuator rivet from a Ford dealer which was $2.40. I found a body shop that drilled out the old rivet and riveted the new actuator in for me for $7. They used a two handed air powered rivet gun. Good luck using anything else, he struggled slightly, even with that heavy rivet gun.
Anyways, I had the door panel off and held the actuator in the correct position as he riveted it. Only one problem, the OEM replacement rivet would not go through the new actutator bracket's rivet hole! We just drilled out the bracket rivet hole slightly and the rivet went through. Moving the actuator into place was a little difficult as well, but I managed.
From my experience, keep in mind that replacing the actuator DOES NOT mean replacing the rivet and the white actuator bracket, unless you want to go through my scenerio. If that actuator holding bracket(thats riveted to door) is not damaged, leave it there and remove the old actuator from it; much easier that way. Then put your new one on the existing bracket. There is a plug at the bottom of the actuator that you will also have to deal with, but thats easy.
The actuator sits in that holding bracket by resting on two black rubber grommets, or 'donuts'. The actuator will slide off bracket(bracket is riveted to door..) at the grommets with some careful(bracket is plastic) downward pushing by the way(the bracket openings point down). It takes a little while, but it goes. The metal rod going into the top of the actuator comes out of the door lock by pulling the actuator out and away from the hole...towards the front of the vehicle, between the window channel and the outside of the door; there was no other way. It felt like I was about to break something doing that, but everything was fine. Careful with the actuator wiring, I had mine tangled around the window channel. My window had caught on it after I thought everything was fixed!
By the way, you might want to buy some new door panel pins to get that snug fit back on the panel. Two boxes were about $4.50 at Schucks.
Here is another link:
http://www.ford-trucks.com/article/idx/0/026/article/1987__1996_FSeries__Bronco_Power_Door_Lock_Actuato r_Replacement.html[/url]
Good luck.
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