Sliding Door Lock Actuator Replacement

In my opinion, its better to call a professional to repair a door for you. When you call locksmith toronto a specialist can suggest you a price and a solution to your problem, approximate time to do that and you should be able to decide what to do. Replacing a key, eve remote in a car can be done by locksmith and you would spend much less money than repairing or bying a new one from a dealer. If you already decided to do that, try to find similar cases on youdube. There are a lot of DIY stuff youtube video that may (or may not) help you with your case. Or amazon/ebay for spare chip https://www.ebay.com (commissions earned)

Actually, video helped me a lot. Untill i broke the chip so i had co call a professional locksmith https://locksmithbrampton24.ca. So indeed it's easier to call and pay some bucks.
 
2006 MPV Actuator repair.

Thought I'd contribute my experience with a 2006 MPV that I worked on this week. It was quite different from the Mazda5 procedure. This MPV has power doors, but no security system. The rear hatch and side door actuators are $160-200 new, so I decided to buy and install new Mabuchi servo motors instead of replacing the actuator.

I couldn't find a write-up on replacing the MPV rear door actuator, but it was relatively easy to access. I gently pulled the side window trim off the rear hatch, and then popped the lower panel at the lower edge until it was only hanging from the window side, then lifted that off and set it aside. Once inside, the actuator is attached to the door latch, so the latch has to be removed. I unbolted the 3 bolts at the bottom of the outside of the hatch (that held the latch in place). Then, from the inside of the panel, I unhooked the two electric wire connectors with a flat blade screw driver, and also disconnected the 2 control rods attached to the lock mechanism. Then the whole latch/actuator assembly easily came out. Once out, I unscrewed the actuator from the latch and began the process of opening it to get to the little Mabuchi servo motor that powers the actuator.

The actuator looked different from the ones shown here. The rear actuator was a simple device with only one (2 wire) connection. I had to split it open with a razor knife and screw driver to access the servo motor. It split open relatively easy. Inside was pretty simple: a 2 wire connection to the servo motor, and a worm gear engaged with a round, toothed gear to control the lock lever. (A very simple device, and certainly not worth $200). I popped the mabuchi servo motor out, and replaced it with a new one I purchased on ebay for $4. (See my below note on the servo coupling). Since the actuator case didn't have screws to keep the case together, I glued the two case halves together with shoe goo. I wanted a strong glue to keep the case together, but soft and flexible enough if I had to crack the case to access it again. I believe it's important to glue it together, because the motor puts a lot of torque on the gears, and when I tested it without being glued, the gear slipped.

Next I worked on the side door locks. To access them, I had to remove the inside door latch, using a trick I saw on this youtube video: I opened the side, sliding door about 6 inches, and starting from the bottom, gently pulled the door panel away from the door. Once the inside door panel was off, the actuator was easy to access. Two screws hold it in place. Once the actuator is out, it was dangling by 4 wires entering the case. There was NO connector for the wires, so I had to unscrew the 4 screws holding the actuator case together, and access the servo motor still connected to the power wires. I used a small screw driver to pry up the servo motor. It was an unusual connection, with 2 wires connected to the servo with contacts that inserted into the female servo power connection. I had to pull them out individually, mark them, and leave them hanging, while I installed the new servo. I had to insert the two loose connectors into the new servo with my thumb, and then press them in with the flat blade of a screw driver. It was tricky and at first I didn't think they were going to fit, but they did. I lubricated the gears and put the 2 halves of the actuator case back together and used the 4 screws to hold it together. (No need for glue on this one). Then I reinstalled the actuator into the door with the 2 screws. Later, after testing, I reinstalled the door panels. All in all, it was a relatively easy fix, that saved about $600 for the 3 door actuators I worked on, so very worthwhile.

The Mabuchi servo on the MPV is different from the ones shown in the rest of this thread. The MPV servo has a metal coupling that slides on the 10mm round power shaft that protrudes from the servo. You have to remove the coupling and install it on the new servo. I found this thread on a Lexus forum that uses a different actuator, but the same servo/worm gear/coupling setup. I found it helpful when trying to decide how to remove the coupling. I tried holding the shaft, under the coupling, with a pair of needle nose pliers and then tapping the shaft from above with a small rod (I used a small allen wrench) to try and tap the shaft out of the coupling. It didn't work. I was afraid I would damage the coupling. Others have tried heating the coupling and tapping it, but then they complained that it didn't fit snugly on the new servo shaft. I ended up buying a small Walkera motor pinion gear puller on ebay, and using it to remove the coupling. It worked adequately well, even though it's not a high quality metal puller. It made the job easier.

One other thing I'll mention, is that after doing the above repair, I tested the locks and found out they worked backwards. When I hit the door lock button on the remote, they UNLOCKED the doors I worked on. As it turns out, I apparently ordered reverse polarity servos. They were marked as appropriate for Mazda, but apparently not for the MPV. I had to cut the power wires to the actuators I repaired and reverse the polarity, by connecting positive to negative wire, etc. I'm not proud of this jack leg approach, but I didn't want to order new servo motors, and reinstall them. So be careful what motors you purchase.

Here's the servos I purchased from ebay that turned out to be reverse polarized for the MPV: https://www.ebay.com (commissions earned)


I didn't document the whole process in pictures, but here are a couple I took, that may help someone else trying this same repair on a MPV.

Here's the rear hatch with actuator attached:
zbmoQUT.jpg


This is the rear hatch actuator removed:
https://i.imgur.com/caCVmGD.jpg

This is the sliding side door actuator removed and disassembled (the servo and wires are out):
https://i.imgur.com/xGg8MRl.jpg

This is the servo with worm gear (both rear hatch and side door actuators used the exact same servo):
https://i.imgur.com/y1iyPYB.jpg
 
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