Pictures inside a lazy door lock

[Evil8]

All my locks are intermittent and usually fail when the weather is warm. I replaced one lock and smashed open the bad one and discovered this:

Its ~1/2" across and appears to be some kind of temperature sensor. The orange and green wires run from the door wiring harness and terminate inside the plastic window of the sensor. My multimeter indicates that there is no continuity between the orange and green wires.
What does this thing do?
Could be fix our lazy door locks by shorting out the wiring harness in the door?

[njjoe]

E8-

Does the white button in the lower-right of the component move? Does it pull out? The reason I ask is maybe the component is a mechanical sensor, and is used to determine the position of the lock. If it does pull out, throw an ohm-meter on it and see if the circuit closes.

-njjoe

[Warhammer]

Did you observe what the new part did before you closed the door back up? I have a lazy door lock on my drivers side. I've been tempted to pull the entire mechanism, clean it, oil it up, and reinstall it to see how it works afterwards. My thoughts are that the mechanism you pull is both electrical and mechanical. If you look at it, is there any tarnish on it or dried up goop? Maybe at one point in time it was nice and lubed up. Over the years the lube probably dried out or it got all goopy and now takes too much power to move the mechanical portion of the assembly.

Try to detail clean it and reinstall it. Might work?

[Evil8]

The white button doesn't move. It appears to be a fill point for whatever liquid/gel/glue is injected in the window. While there are quite a few gears inside the lock, this sensor didn't physically interact with any moving part.

I could try some lithium grease but the lock mechanism already moves quite smoothly. I'm going to stick the device in the fridge to see if that changes its continuity.

[njjoe]

E8-

Now I am stumped. I am trying to figure what could possibly be in the lock circuitry that would require temperature compensation.

The service manual is not helpful because it treats the lock mechanism as a component and does break it down to a lower level.

You are blazing a trail for the rest of us. Let us know what you find out.

-njjoe

[kobayashi maru]

Shot in the dark... could it be a temperature sensor for the driver's side climate control?

[Evil8]

Definitely not for climate control since I smashed this out of the rear passenger door. I suspect that the lock might have a temperature sensor to avoid burning out the motor if the fob or switch is held down.

[Evil8]

After getting home tonight, I realized the white bump is indeed a button. I know that I tried to activate the switch earlier; how did I miss this?
This is probably a switch that lets the computer know whether the locks are activated or not.
As a test, I measured the resistance between through the switch at room temperature and submerged in some microwaved water but found no difference.