How To: Making Door Locks Flush

[Elderain]

This "How To" will explain in detail how to make your door locks be flush with the door, when in the locked position. The final outcome will look something like this. It should let you rest your arm out the window, without the pesky lock in the way!







First off, a few details before you get started. I did this on my 03.5 Mazdaspeed Protege`, so I don't know what other vehicles it will work on. Your door locks will not be able to be unlocked manually, you will have to use the power door lock button to open any door that you modify like this. It took me aproximatley 30 minutes for one door. The cost per door is about $1.50. All the things I used were bought at the Home Depot, and the tools I just had laying around the house.

Tools:
Phillips and Flat Head Screw Driver,
Bolt Cutters (or something else able to cut the rod)
Permanent Marker
Epoxy
Plastic Connector

When I went to the Home Depot to find the afore mentioned "Plastic Connector", I searched around, and found a suitable canidate in the isle with all the screw, bolts, washers, nuts, etc. Here are what they look like.



They are about 1" long, and the ID is slightly bigger then 1/8". The package had no actual markings of size on them. They cost $0.48 for a package of 2.

The epoxy used, I did't take a picture of, but anything should do that will bond plastic/metal together. Usually a small tube costs about $4.00 and should be more then enough to do this mod to every car on your block. I used a lolipop stick to stir it together with, and put it on wax paper. It comes in 2 parts and you should mix it right before you use it.

[Elderain]

Once you have all the parts you will need, its time to start taking your door off. The pictures to follow are all of the passenger door, so yours might look different. You need to remove a few screws, a retaining clip, the arm rest/handle, the tweeter (if a front door), and a few small plastic clips. The pictures below show the locations, and how to remove them.

First I removed the tweeter. I put my fingers where the pink arrows are, and pulled twords me, until a metal retaining clip popped out, it took a little bit of force. There is plenty of wire behind it that you wont rip the speaker wire out of the speaker. Once the first half is out, just get a better grip, and pull the second clip in the corner out.



This should give you an idea of how much wire there is also, so you know how hard not to pull! Also you can see where the two pink arrows point to the clips that hold it on.



Once the tweeter is off, I just hung it over the door to keep it out of harms way, so I didn't break it, and so it didn't get in my way.

Next I took the Arm Rest/Handle off of the door. There are 2 screws (for this particular door), and underneath it are 2 more screws. Once the 2 screws come off, you have to pull the Arm Rest/Handle off with a little force. I will show a picture of what the back looks like, so you know what way to pull (this took me a minute or two to figure out the first time).



After those 2 screws come out, the handle has to be pulled away from the door, and twords the front of the car. There is once clip on the backside, and if you dont pull twords the front of the car, it makes it alot harder to come off.



If you push twords the back end of the car, the clip the arrow is pointing to wont let it come off. It took me a minute of pulling around to get it off. I put it back on, and when I pulled out and forward, it popped right off.

Once the Arm Rest/Handle comes off, there are 2 screws underneath it that you have to take out.



Once those 2 screws come out, there is a screw with a plastic cap over it, located just underneath the tweeter. I used a Flat Head Screwdriver to pry the cap up, you can use your finger nails also if you have any. Once the cap is up, take the screw out.



Next there is a screw inside the Door Handle, remove this next. Once the screw is out, the Door Handle should pop right out, there is a small clip on the back that dosen't really hold anything in. It practically fell out once the screw was removed.



After the Door Handle is removed, there is one more plastic retaining clip, on the side of the door. You can pry the center of it out with your finger nails, or the Flat Head Screwdriver. Once you pop up the center piece, it comes out about 1/4" inch, pull the whole clip out from the base.



Once that retaining clip on the side of the door is removed, you have to pull the door panel away from the door. There are about 5 or so white plastic clips on the backside that just pop out when you pull.



I put my fingers under the door panel where the pink arrows are, and gave a gentle tug and one or two of the small clips popped out.



Here you can see 2 of the white clips that held the door panel on, they snap out very easily. From there, just tug around the outside of the panel and unclip the rest of these.

[Elderain]

After you get all the white clips unsnapped, you should be able to grab the whole door panel and lift up, and it should be completley unhooked from the door. There are still lots of wires behind it that I did not remove. I just let the door panel hang there, but if you so choose to mess with wires, you can unplug it all and move the door panel elsewhere while you work.



This is the part we will be focusing on, and cutting. There is a little bit of plastic in front of it which you can pull down. Be careful not to get the tacky tar stuff that holds the plastic to the door, all over stuff.



Now is where you will need the marker, and your bolt cutters, or other means of cutting the rod. What I first did was mark the rod in the locked and unlocked position, after the small clip that holds the rod to the door. I did this so that I did'nt cut the rod in half, to close to the top, so that it wouldnt be able to go up when unlocked.



The top mark is when the door is locked, and the bottom, is when it is unlocked. I made the mark parallel to the bottom of the plastic clip so I know where the clip would hit, when in locked or unlocked position. Next I took the bolt cutters, or tool of your choice, and cut the rod about 3/4" above the point where it curved.



Now you want to figure out how far down the plastic piece of the lock has to go, to become flush. Fortunatley this is easy. The bottom part of this piece, should slide down as far as it can into the clip, so the top of the clip and the bottom of this piece meet.



Once that is in position you need to mark on that same piece, where to make another cut in the rod. To determine this location, move the part of the rod that is still conencted to the door, along side of the piece that is in the clip. Draw a line across where they would need to meet. Your going to cut this rod just a little above that line, to give your self enough room inside the plastic coupler.



Once you cut that piece of rod shorter, its time to mix your epoxy. I took a lolipop stick and a piece of wax paper. The eopxy I used had two tubes and you mix equal parts together, stir, and apply. I didn't get shots of me applying the glue, but it's not needed. Apply the epoxy to the bottom half of the rod, still attached to the door, then slide the plastic coupler over top. Next put epoxy on the bottom of the rod that isn't attached, but is in the clip, then slide that into the top of the coupler, and then snap it back into the clip.



Make sure the coupler is as far down on the rod as it can go, but that it has enough of the rod inside that it will not fall out. If you did it right, the coupler should be down far enough on the rod, that when you unlock the door, it does not hit the small plastic clip holding the rod to the door. Basically your done now, you can wait a small while for the glue to dry while you do the other doors, or just close the door up and let it dry inside. Put all the panels back on the door in reverse order of how you took them off, and if all went well, when your door is locked, you now have a door lock thats flush!

[Matthew]

very nice write up, though the pics are a bit dark...if you want, send me the files zipped (i know i can save them from here but im too lazy to save every idividual file) and i can lighten them up in photoshop if you dont have it...i think you said you had PSP, and if you do i would suggest lightening the photos...BUT enough negative, excellant first write up!

[Elderain]

I use PS7 also, I just wanted to write it up and draw some pictures before I forgot what I did Ill brighten em up in a few.

[FrigginGLI]

Nice write up , very detailed. Thats for the how-to.

[Matthew]

Originally posted by Elderain
I use PS7 also, I just wanted to write it up and draw some pictures before I forgot what I did Ill brighten em up in a few.

[AZDriftR]

Wow, good job, Even better idea! this is on my list of Future mods. Thanks alot!

[ATLskate]

Loved the writeup, definately in my future. Good job!

[Elderain]

better pics should be up now hope you can see em alright. I did em at like 8pm on a rainy day lol. I was going to video tape the whole thing by my dad wouldnt help

[derrick1623]

excellent write-up...and not only is it a mod, it's kinda a security feature.i likey

[Elderain]

keeps girls from running out of the car too LOL

[zumi]

looks good!

but what happens if, hypothetically, you are in your car and your battery dies, and all the door are locked? maybe you should have some little tool to help snag it up on these emergency situations.

cars that come with this feature, the locks pop up when you pull on the handle, right?

[Midnight22]

wow, im def doin this, i just dont like the fact that i cant manually unlock them now, u know what, im gonna take a look at them and my rents car and see how i can make the door unlock when i pull the handle, cuz if i got that then i wouldnt have to manually unlock them... sounds like a project, but once again great how-to and itz a mod i do see in the future

[zumi]

well i guess if you didn't do this to ALL your doors you would be okay =)