Door Lock Problem

.I just gotta figure out how to get a door open that the lock is missing and even turning the key in the lock on the outside of the door it will not open? any suggestions?
 
rear door on the drivers side only thing I can think of is take it ooff the hinges and go from there, I cant get the door panel off without tearing it up.
 
you can't get it off but if your careful you can get it loose from the top. taking off the hinges would give you a latched door you can't get off ether. now the question comes up ,does the window roll down or not?? it's a little easier sometimes if it does. I'm guessing that the inside knob is missing in action? what happened to the door is that it puts the lock mechanism in about half way some time when you slam the door. this one is not used vary much and it is always dirty. with a roll down window one might move it down and reach in threw the slot and either reposition the lock or trip the latch. good locksmith will do it in about 5 mins if he is a talker. me I got to ding around for a hr or so. if the glass won't roll down remove all the hardware you can. every screw you can reach then start on the front corner pry up the trim pad till you get the metal lip over the frame and then work it off as you go back. then it's good luck as some have a good access hole some do not. you may have to cut one to get in. I have removed the out side handle and then been able to go threw that hole to reset the lock. if you can reach the latch you can fumble it back into position to. just take your time don't get frustrated and tear up a bunch of stuff you can't replace.
 
you can roll the window down but only half way and both door latches are there you can feel it catch some when you use them but doesnt seem to release where latch latches to the car on the round stem on the door frame. The locking stem that comes up out of the door panel is gone.
 
then what has most likely happened is the rod has caught up under the lip of the door frame and it won't let the door unlock. peal the trim pad off like I said and you may be able to fish the rod back up threw the hole letting you unlock the door. it may just be right under the trim pad to. you can't unlock the door if the inside rod won't move. they are connected to the same leaver. http://www.dropshots.com/jer57747#date/2011-02-15/15:23:38

this is the working mechanism out of the back door of a 63. now yours will be different but the principle is the same. the out side lock and the inside lock are hooked to the same leaver that kicks the trip away from the release.

only two ways to get the latch to release one move the lock leaver or two manually pull the trip leaver on the latch.

with the glass only going half way down I don't know if it moves away in the rear enough for you to put a wire down there and work the release but lifting the trim pad up out of the top will let you move the inside rod to were you can unlock the door from the out side. good luck
 
I had the same thing on my car for the longest time after I got it... Strangely, cursing at it didn't free it, regardless of volume - I even tried a couple different languages.

On mine, although the key turned in the lock, and the inside knob moved slightly, it didn't have that positive "click" when locking or unlocking. I finally decided one day that I was going to open that door if it killed me... So here's what I did:

First I removed the door panel on the opposite side door which DID open. The reason for this was so I could see exactly how the rods/levers operated on a working door.

Once I was comfortable that I understood the mechanism, I went to work on the stuck door. I rolled the window down all the way - and started by first liberally dousing every contact point with some WD40. I then used a variety of things to move the various pivots around. Eventually, I found the offending lever - as I recall, it had a sort of paddle shape to it... it was stuck halfway and wouldn't budge. I hosed the pivot point with WD40 to loosen up the grime, snaked a long 3/8" extension through the window opening and nudged it back into position. The door opened, but the lever would still get stuck. It wasn't till after THOUROUGHLY removing all the years of dirt and grime, and re-greasing the pivots that it operated properly.

My guess is that on the older cars, more dirt gets past the weatherstripping than usual... this gums up the works, and the least-used doors are the first to get stuck.
 
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