How to Replace Door Lock Actuator 2005-11 Honda Civic

Hi, I’m Mike from 1A Auto. We’ve been selling auto parts for over 30 years!

To remove this master window switch, there is a tab that is fitting under the door panel on this side, and there's a clip on this side, so it needs to be lifted up this way first, and then lift it out. I'm going to use this plastic prying tool—you can get these from 1AAuto.com—just kind of work it underneath the edge of the switch. If you need to, you can go on this side, the outside here. I'm just going to pop it up, and then it's going to lift out backwards. This hook here has to come off. Push in the locks, and pull this connector out. And another lock on this side, undo this connector. Take that out.

Then go in behind the door handle, use a plastic trim tool to pop this lock off. Might have to do it with that. Pop that plastic piece out, and put that aside. There's a small push clip. You can use a small flat bladed screwdriver to kind of open it up. Tricky to get in here. So, popped it out, now I can pull the clip out. It should be unlocked, and when I pull the door panel off, it should pop that out.

Remove the Phillips head screw. There's just push clips that are around the edge of the door holding it to the door panel now, so I'm going to hold onto the door and just give it a firm pull. Reach my hand underneath. The top of this door panel kind of clamps around the door panel, so I lift it up and off. Now that clip popped out because it was unlocked. So, we've got the door lock, the cables, going to pop this out and then pop that up. And then, there's another one here. I'm going to pop that off of there and this will pull out.

Take the small flat bladed screwdriver, and pop this lock up. I just had to pry this tab out from underneath this metal here, and that's what unlocked it. I need to remove this clip here and push that off. We'll pull that straight up, and pull the door panel out of the car.

We'll take off this water vapor barrier. You're going to pop these plugs out. You can use a plastic trim tool. You can get these from 1aauto.com. Just, kind of, pop it out gently. Make sure you don't lose them if you drop them.

Unplug the door lock actuator, there's a little lock on the top. Just push it in, pull it right out. And get this rubber plug out of here. Just push that out. About ready to take this vapor barrier off. It's got this butyl tape that's on the backside of it, it's very, very sticky. Just kind of carefully peel it off. Probably want to wear gloves because it'll get all over your hands. And you also at the same time going to guide out this harness as I pull this off. If the stuff is really sticky, you can take a razor blade, and as you're peeling it, just sort of slice the butyl tape part. Try to be careful with the vapor barrier because it's kind of fragile and it can stretch and rip. You want to be able to reuse it. And then guide the harness out of here. Just keep going. Also helps when you do this if it's a warm day.

This butyl tape is a lot easier to work with. Got to get this one out. You want to put this somewhere where it's not going to lay sticky side down. And just where it won't get damaged so you can reuse it.

Use a plastic trim tool or a small flat bladed screwdriver. You can get these plastic tools from 1AAuto.com. We're going to pop out this rubber plug, kind of work it out. Put that aside. We need to remove this actuator rod that goes from the door handle down to the door lock actuator. There's a plastic clip at the top. Going to pull it away with my finger. Slide it open, and it needs to come out this way. If it doesn't come free, then pop a trim tool up behind it, use that to pry it off because it's got a little bit of a lip to it. It'll pop right off.

Then you're going to remove this bolt here and pull the lock cylinder off the back of the door handle. Use the 10 milliliter socket, ratchet, and extension. Careful because the bolt is not captured in there. So it might want to fall.

I'm going to pull the door lock cylinder and bracket off the back of the door handle. You kind of slide it out. And it will just hang loose there. We're going to feed it down through this opening in the door bar when we take out the door lock actuator. This bolt here is holding in the lower part of the window run channel. It kind of runs in front of the door lock actuator, so use a 10 millimeter socket ratchet to loosen. And this way, I can move it around. And it will help me get the door lock actuator out. Just going to take that out and put that aside.

See how this is loose and I can bend it? I'm going to take a Phillips head screwdriver and remove these three Phillips head screws. I'm going to remove this Phillips head screw here. Before I do that, I'm also going to unclip the cables that are clipped into this little plastic clip here. Just push them out. I'm going to use a decent sized Phillips head screwdriver—one that kind of has a flat tip to it. So it fits in there nice and solid. Push against it. Remove the screw and put it aside.

I'm going to remove these three screws over here. Break them all free first. Put those aside. And very gently with my right hand just kind of push. I don't want to push on the tabs inside here, I just want to push in the edge and break it free. And kind of slide it out. I'm maneuvering it around that run channel. We're also feeding the cable down that has locks on it and bracket attached to it and working it through the door.

If you don't undo the lock cylinder from the door handle and let it slide down, you're going to have to work with this very close against the outside door panel, and it's kind of hard to remove. There's actually a tab here that I broke trying to remove it. But what you do is push outward on these clips. There’s a tab on each side. Kind of push it up. And then it unlocks and you can pull this cable out. Now we can slide auto lock actuator out. I've got the window track or the run channel pushed up here. And maneuver this whole thing out of the door. You can take the lock cylinder out now. It's on the end of the cable. Whole assembly. Just to give you a better understanding of how this door lock actuator and the actual lock cylinder and the cable connect, because you need to disconnect them. But when they're inside the door panel, so it's a little hard to see.

So this is up inside the door panel like this, and the cable come down. And this door lock actuator sitting in there, and it goes into here. And there's a little orange piece in there that's keyed for this metal part of the cable, so that actually fits into there. To get it to line up, it'll snap into place. And then the lock goes over. And that holds this in place. Let's see, actually, you have to be careful. See, I just plugged this in. I mean, it'd be easier in the car because this is held in place, but I just did it 180 degrees out.

So to take it off, you're actually pulling on these tabs. Normally, there's a tab here but it broke off. So you actually take and push these two tabs out and unlock it like that. And then you could pull this whole thing right out of the door lock actuator. And then just make sure when it gets installed this is facing towards the door panel. And again, it just pushes in and then clips in place.

So I'm going to reinstall this back in the door panel. All right, we're going to take our door lock cylinder and the cable and feed it into the door panel around this piece of sheet metal here. Can just feed it down and just leave it there until I'm ready to connect it to the door lock actuator.

Going to reinstall the door lock actuator back in the door. Before I get it too far, I'm going to hook up the door lock cylinder cable. All right. Get that locked into place. Slide the actuator up. This screw pod. Reinstall these screws on the outside here. Push up into place from the inside. Use a Phillips head screwdriver and tighten these up. Bring them in evenly. That one tight. Clip our cables back in place. And just push right back in the clip.

Put the door lock back into place, trying to get that tab caught. A little tricky, might have to reach over. Just push against the outside door lock handle. Outside door handle. There it is. We're going to reinstall the bolt.

Reach in with the socket extension and put the bolts in there. Be very careful you don't drop it. You could take just a little bit of this stuff here and get it stuck on the bolt. And it will stick inside here and it won't fall out. Let's find the hole and line it up. Might have to hold this handle on the outside. Just get that threaded in. Just snug it up. We won't have to kill it. Take it out.

Going to take our control rod, push that into the grommet like that and push the lock tab over it. Now it's installed. Don't forget to reset the window run channel that you moved. Make sure it's back in there. Otherwise your window is not going to go up and down properly. Just tighten that down.

We're going to place our vapor barriers. It's got some openings in it for the different cables. Let's do this first. Put the control cables in for the door lock and the door handle. There's another opening here for the door lock actuator. Get that set up. Feed the harness through for the master window switch and mirror control. So those are in place. Just kind of line it up with where it was originally. This stuff is so sticky. Kind of put it back into place. Just go right around the edge. Just want to replace any rubber plugs you took out, that one there. This one goes on this side. Also holds in the vapor barrier. Put this little one back in place. Don't forget to plug in your door lock actuator.

To reinstall our door panel, we'll feed the master window switch up into the opening in the door panel. You're going to get close to the door. You need to reinstall the door lock and the door pull handle. This one with the threads, or the things that look like threads on it, sits in this opening here. You're going to get it pushed into place, and put this lock over. Get that into position. Also, helps to have the window open, as you can see, so you can kind of look through.

Grab our other cable and do the same thing. Push it into the opening, push the lock over, snap that in place and then push this lock up there. Now, I'm going to hang on the edge of the door panel. We'll get that set up first, just like that. Make sure our harness is out here, and we can just push it into place on the clips. Go around the door panel and push it in.

This Phillips head screw with the shoulder goes to the top. There's also a push clip that goes in here. Push that in place. Push the center part in to lock it. Place the trim cap, slide the little hook front part in. That's installed. Then, install this screw.

To install this, plug the large connector back in place. It'll click when it's locked in. Plug this small white connector into here. It'll also click. There's a tab that's going to fit into the door panel on this side first, then a clip that's going to clip down into the door panel. Start by fitting it this way, and then pushing it down into the door panel.

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