I just got a 93 coupe, and its great. I just need to do some little things. How hard is it to replace a door lock actuator, and door hinges, mine make the door droop. Thanx
If you are comfortable trying it you can do a search as it has been covered many times on here. Not for the faint of heart on the hinges. Depending on how bad it is the hinge itself may be bad.
Very simple. The acutator is riveted in. Remove the door panel, and drill out that rivet, unplug the wire, and change the actuator, rivet back in and bingo.....
The door pins are simple also. Simply grind the head off of the stock pins. Clean the surface, and slide in the new door pins and bushings. It would be advised to have a friend hold the door so it doesn't fall over and get damaged. The door pins usually will have a hole in the bottom so you can slide a cottar pin through so the door pins won't pop out.
Stuck with door lock actuators that don't work and don't want to pay the $50+ for a new one? Tried the junkyard ones and found that they last six months and freeze up?
A new actuator for less than $5. Fix one side for $18, do both sides for only $25. I don't sell parts, I don’t make any money off of the upgrade, I just tell you how to do it cheaply and easily.
The hard part is to get the old pin out. Some were spot welded in, others were hammered so that the end mushroomed. Either way, it takes a grinder or cutter bit in a drill or Dremel tool to cut the pin or grind off the weld. Once it is off, tap the pin out with a hammer. Only remove one pin at a time so that you don't have the full weight of the door to manage. I highly recommend that you have a helper standing by to hold the door.
Once the old pin is out, lower the door and tap out the old bushings. Put the new bushings in and have the helper lift the door in place so that you can slide the new pin in. It may have to go in differently from the way it came out. That's OK, as long as you put the cotter pin in the hinge pin.
OOOPS!!!The important thing to remember is that the hinge pin isn't supposed to move once you are finished. If it does, then you will end up like me - the pin moved, it wore the door hinge instead of the replaceable bushings. Now in order to fix it right, I have to remove the whole thing again and drill out the hinge to the same size as the bushing and use 2 sets of bushings in each hinge rather than one set.
The fix for the OOOPS was very time consuming and if you aren't up to some very interesting machine work, do it right so you won't have to do it again. I fixed the OOOPS but I had $43 worth of drill bit and specialized reamer plus pulling the fender off to fix it.