How To Replace Door Lock Actuator 2001-06 Dodge Stratus
Created on: 2011-11-04
Learn how to remove the door panel and replace the door lock actuator by following the steps in this how-to video
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step 1 :Removing the Door Panel
- Pry off the trim piece inside the door pull with a flat blade screwdriver
- Pry off the trim piece inside the door handle with a flat blade screwdriver
- Remove the Phillips head screw inside the door pull
- Remove the Phillips head screw inside the door handle
- Remove the three Phillips screws at the bottom of the door panel
- Remove the Phillips head screw at the edge of the door panel
- Pry off the trim piece at the front top corner of the door panel with a flat blade screwdriver
- Pry out the door panel with a door panel clip tool or putty knife
- Lift the door panel up and off
- Disconnect the lock wiring harness
- Disconnect the latch cables from the door handle
- Disconnect the window switch wiring harnesses
- Carefully peel off the water shield
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step 2 :Removing the Lock Actuator
- Remove the 10mm nut and 10mm bolt from the window track
- Remove the window track
- Remove the red clip from the lock rod
- Remove the orange clip from the lock rod
- Remove the three T30 Torx screws from the lock actuator
- Push harness off the clips on the door
- Disconnect the lock harness from the actuator
- Pull the lock rods and actuator out of the door
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step 3 :Preparing the New Lock Actuator
- Remove the two Phillips screws from the backside of the actuator
- Connect the latch to the new actuator
- Insert the two Phillips screws to the backside
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step 4 :Installing the New Lock Actuator
- Insert the lock actuator into the door
- Place each lock rod in their correct slots
- Connect the lock wiring harness to the actuator
- Insert the actuator into place
- Insert the three T30 Torx screws to the actuator
- Clip the red clip to the lock rod
- Clip the orange clip to the lock rod
- Insert the window track into place
- Tighten the 10mm nut and 10mm bolt to the window track
- Connect the window switch
- Test the window and lock
- Disconnect the switch
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step 5 :Reinstalling the Door Panel
- Put the water shield into place
- Connect the lock wiring harness
- Connect the latch cables from the door handle
- Connect the window switch wiring harnesses
- Connect the latch cables to the door handle
- Lift the door panel into place
- Push in the door panel clips
- Insert the Phillips screw into the door handle
- Insert the three Phillips screws at the bottom of the door panel
- Insert the Phillips head screw at the edge of the door panel
- Push on the trim piece inside the door pull
- Push on the trim piece inside the door handle
- Push on the trim piece at the top front corner of the door panel
Tools needed
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Flat Blade Screwdriver
Phillips Head Screwdriver
Putty Knife
T30 Driver
10mm Wrench
10mm Socket
Ratchet
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Hi, I'm Mike Green. I'm one of the owners of 1A Auto. I want to help you save time and money repairing or maintaining your vehicle. I'm going to use my 20-plus years experience restoring and repairing cars and trucks like this to show you the correct way to install parts from 1AAuto.com. The right parts installed correctly: that's going to save you time and money. Thank you and enjoy the video.
In this video, we're going to show you how to remove and reinstall the door lock actuator on this 2004 Dodge Stratus. It's the same as any 2001 to 2006. You might need to do this repair if you find that your automatic locks aren't working on one of the doors. Tools you'll need for this repair: flat blade screwdriver, Phillips screwdriver, a door panel clip tool or a putty knife to pull your door panel off, 10mm wrench or socket and ratchet, and a T30 Torx driver with a ratchet handle.
You will need the style that has the ratchet handle because you'll need some leverage on those lock bolts. Use a small flat blade screwdriver, and down in the pull cup here, pry up a little trapdoor. There's a Phillips screw in there, and then in behind your door handle, there's another Phillips screw in there. Then there's three Phillips screws: one there, there, there, and then one on the back edge here. Just going to fast-forward as I use a Phillips screwdriver and remove six screws in all.
This triangle up here gets pulled out. All you need is a putty knife. Get it down in behind the door panel here, slide it down, pull it out, and then start to pull the pins. Then the door panel comes up.
Right here is your lock harness. There's a little button press on that, press it to disconnect. Then, on your latch rod, there's a clip. I'm just going to reach in behind with my finger and pull that clip off, and then the rod comes up and off.
Lastly, down here is your window harness. There's a button right in the middle. You've really got to push that button, and then work the harness out and your door panel is off. Once your door panel is off, you want to check these aqua clip pins here, because there could be pins stuck inside them. Use a pair of needle nose pliers, pull the pins out, and then reinstall them on the inside of your door panel. Even though I'm using fast motion here, you do want to slowly and carefully peel back the water shield.
Next, remove a 10mm nut down here and a 10mm bolt here. Fast-forward as I remove those two fasteners. We'll just pull out this window track. Now, inside you're going to remove two clips: there's a red one here pull that back, pull that rod out and up higher there's an orange clip up there pull that back and off.
We're going to use a T30 Torx driver with a ratchet handle to remove these three bolts here. Now, you can see the lock comes out. There's a clip right here. Push through and just pull the harness from the backside. Pull that off, and there's another one here, same thing. You just pull back and forth and the harness comes out. Let's see, I'll slide our lock down.
You can see our door lock knob is coming out. Down here, there's a harness, so you press a tab right here and disconnect that lock harness. Pull your latch mechanism out. Once you have this out, there are two Phillips screws on the backside.
Now this latch is basically a mechanical mechanism, and this is the power door lock and latch that you service separately. On my vehicle everything is working fine, I'm just doing this to show you. I'm going to put this back together.
I'll just speed it up as we put those two screws back in and tighten them up nice and firm. When this goes in it sits like that, with your lock up and this is your inside door handle rod so what you'll want to do to put it back in, start with it flipped upside down, put this in here and put it against the door. You are bending this latch out a little bit but it will unbend. Pull the latch rod up, your door lock in there, get that harness out of the way for right now.
You want to be careful to not get your outside door handle rod in the wrong place. Bring your lock up through. Here's your latch and everything, and bring this thin spring over this way. I'm going to connect my harness. Make sure that my lock rod's going up in the right place.
Now I'm reaching in, pulling back my outside door handle rod, putting it into place, and sliding it up. Start the three screws by hand. Our latch rod is in the right place, this is coming through the right hole and down in here, right in here you can see there's our outside door handle rod, pull this latch lever down a little bit, put the rod in, and secure that. Up here this rod is now in place and lock that clip on. Now we'll speed it up here again as we just tighten up those three T30 Torx bolts or screws. We'll keep the speed going as we put that track back up in there, just make sure the top of it goes around the window correctly. Bolt it in place with the nut and the bolt. Then we actually reconnect our window switch, make sure the window's working correctly, and then also make sure that the power door lock is working correctly before you put it all back together.
Get your door panel back on. First reconnect your power window switch. Make sure it clicks. Bring it close, reconnect your power door locks, leave this rod put it into the hole, slip the clip right around, clip it on. Make sure your lock goes through. There is a large locating tab. It goes into a big hole.
Once you've got that, make sure your pins go in go in correctly. Now it's just a matter of replacing all the Phillips screws. We'll speed up as we replace all those screws and those one down in the door cup, behind the door panel, three at the bottom, and then one at the back.
We hope this video helps you out. Brought to you by www.1AAuto.com, your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the Internet. Please feel free to call us toll-free, 888-844-3393. We're the company that's here for you on the Internet and in person.
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