How to Replace Master Door Lock 1994-2002 Dodge Ram 1500

Hey friends, it's Len here at 1A Auto. Today we're going to be working on our 1996 Dodge Ram 1500. I want to show you something fairly basic: removing and reinstalling a lock switch. Should be super easy. I can do it and you can do it too. As always, if you need any parts, you could check us out 1aauto.com. Thanks.

Okay, so we've got a couple Phillips head screws, one here and one here. We'll take those out. We've got our two screws. They're both the same. This right here can move around now. That's nice. Cool. All right, we've got another screw up here ... that out of there. It looks the same as the other two, nothing special. Set all three of those aside. Now this door panel, we're just going to feel around, make sure that there's no more screws. Sometimes you'll feel a couple coming along the bottom there. This does not feel like it has any, so we're doing all right.

We have a couple of plastic trim tools. The reason why we're using plastic is because we're going to be going up against the paint and if you're worried about your paint, then of course you don't want to scratch it up with metal. Just come right in here like this. I'm just going to go right along. Just going to have to let this up. As you go you're going to just kind of jam it towards the forward position, or I guess towards the front of the vehicle. There we are, and that's just because on the backside of this we've got all these little clips and they go inside these hooky do's. And these things, I don't know why Dodge did it, but they've got some so you need to slide straight up and down, you've got some that you need to slide forward and back ... whatever. I'm sure they had their reasons.

But anyway, we've got this almost off now. So now what we're going to do is we're going to get the wiring off of the back here. So the next thing we're going to want to do is disconnect this right here. There's a little tab, you can usually grab it with your thumb. If you can't, a small pocket screwdriver. Just grab it, pull it away, give this top area a little wiggle, it should want to slide right out. Awesome.

So right here there's a little tab. You can use your thumb if you want to try to push it. Just be careful for a pinch. I'm going to use this. I'm just going to push right here. That lets this come up. Now if we come this side, you can lift right up on this. Awesome. I'm just going to go right like this, see if I can get it to go down and through. This is great. Now we can get our door panel right out of the way. Keep on plugging away.

So now to take out the switch from inside this right here, there's going to be a tab right along this that looks exactly like this, except black. There's going to be one on the other side. It's the same exact thing just like this. So you're just going to essentially go like this, pry it a little bit so it comes off a little hooky tab, and then you're going to pull it off. Put it in there, see if I can get it. Here we are. Sometimes if you get just one ... here we are. There's our lock switch. I'm just going to take this, go right in like that. Try to lift up on that tab. Try not to break it, they're very easy to break. Awesome. So here's our switch, you got your little tabs. There it is. Easy peasy.

So now we're just going to plug it in. You've got a little tab right here, and that goes right up here. Just in case you were worried maybe you spun it around, you're looking at it, you're doing whatever you're doing, making an intro and you try to put it in upside down, it's not going to go that way. It's kind of foolproof. We're just going to put this right in and you're going to see the lock tab lock in. There it is, it's audible. Give it a little squeeze. This side looks good. Awesome. Let's continue.

We're just going to take this, slide it right in here. There we are. All right, so it's going to be time to get the door panel on here. Before we go ahead and do that, we're going to take out all these pushpins. All right, and we're going to put them right into the door panel and then we'll put the door panel in and the pushpins will hold it to the door. To do that you're going to use something as simple as this, it's a little forky tool. Just like that, give a little twist. Whatever you got to do to get these puppies to pull out. They make them nice and long for you. That's what they look like. They got a little ear there and that's where it's going to slide over the door panel, and then these little ears right here are what hold into this hole. We'll take all these out and we can continue.

So these little tabs, the pushpins, get that area right there that I showed you before. It just slides right in. Bonk, there we are. Do the same for all of them and then we can continue. Okay friends, let's get this door panel on. I'm going to take the electrical connector or the electrical harness here ... try to bring it up and through this. It can be a little tricky sometimes. I try to get out of the way. I'll just give it a ... there it is. You just have to be a little forceful with it sometimes. That's okay. We've got our electrical connector right here for our mirror switch. We're going to plug that in. You can tell which way it goes because it has this little nub right here and that lines up with the nub in there. Slide it in, give it a tug. Don't pull the whole thing right off the door though. Put that back on there. Cool.

All right, let's bring this up. What we're going to pay attention to now is the door handle. I'm just going to try to pull the door handle through its hole. Slide this over, awesome. We've got our lock. Just take the lock, just bring it right through the hole. Awesome. Bring the door panel down, get it so all of our little pushpins slash pitons are going to be lined up with our holes. Once you get a couple of them started in, generally speaking all the rest will be lined up. The hardest ones for me to see are the top ones. But it is important to get them lined up.

Down along the other side here. Same thing along this side. Just line up as many of them as you can before you start bonking them in. The one in the center here, it is lined up but not going in. There it is, yeah. You just want to make sure that your door lock can flow up and down easily. If it can't, this could be wedged a little bit. Maybe the bar got bent in some of the process that you were doing. If that's the case, well, you're just going to have to pop this back out of the way and see what you can do about bending it because you want this to make sure that it can go up and down. That looks really great. I would say we can continue.

So now we're going to take our long screw and we're going to go right up in here. Just try to find the hole real quick and then I'll get out of the way. There it is. We don't need it to be too tight. We don't want to break the plastic or anything. We just needed to pull this right up against. That looks pretty great. We can move along. Grab our switch here. It's just going to slide in.

Let's take a look at. It goes in the backside first, and then the front side. Bonk, bonk. Very nice. We're going to grab our little cup with our two mounting screws. Put it facing the right way. You got your holes, so you can see where it goes right down into the door. Phillips head ... Start that one in. Start this one in. We're just going to bring it all the way down. That's snug. Awesome.

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