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940 Door lock puzzler

Pap

Pap

New member
Joined
May 6, 2012
Location
Keystone State
Got one for the guru's here... My 92 940 has had this annoying problem since the day I bought it.. It would randomly lock all the doors when you would go to open the drivers door.. This led to a hidden key before I'd get locked out at the most inopportune time.. or at the ghetto-gas station, in the undesirable part of town. :-P

It did not follow a predictable cycle of opening the door to have it lock up. Sometimes it would go 6 tries, other times a dozen. So today, I had the time to pull off the door panel and see whats up. On another Volvo forum, the one guy suggested the spring was bad on the latch and that was the cause... Today I replaced the outside door lock mechanism and pulled a spare door handle from the junked 740 wagon. After looking at the door handle, there is nothing there unusual or any spring, so I'm not bothering to replace that... I installed the new door latch and tried it... same thing.. locks me out...

Now the funky stuff...

I found the central locking relay and tried changing it... same result.. :grrr:

I then unplugged the door power door lock motor.. I figured this would do it for sure. Now the key/lock all feature doesn't work.. but I'd rather manually lock all the doors, than be locked out.

Well. I decided to try it before putting back on the door panel. ...

After a few tries the damn thing locked itself again... :wtf: how can this be? It is nothing but the handle, the lock rod connecting to the latch, and the latch.. nothing else and it still locks by itself. The self locking bit is what tripped all the other locks to go via the sensor/power lock motor harness.

So what is left to do? the handle is a simple lever... a rod.. and a latch.. big deal... how can I fix this?

Ideas?

Cheers,
Mike
 
Pap said:
Got one for the guru's here... My 92 940 has had this annoying problem since the day I bought it.. It would randomly lock all the doors when you would go to open the drivers door.. This led to a hidden key before I'd get locked out at the most inopportune time.. or at the ghetto-gas station, in the undesirable part of town. :-P

It did not follow a predictable cycle of opening the door to have it lock up. Sometimes it would go 6 tries, other times a dozen. So today, I had the time to pull off the door panel and see whats up. On another Volvo forum, the one guy suggested the spring was bad on the latch and that was the cause... Today I replaced the outside door lock mechanism and pulled a spare door handle from the junked 740 wagon. After looking at the door handle, there is nothing there unusual or any spring, so I'm not bothering to replace that... I installed the new door latch and tried it... same thing.. locks me out...

Now the funky stuff...

I found the central locking relay and tried changing it... same result.. :grrr:

I then unplugged the door power door lock motor.. I figured this would do it for sure. Now the key/lock all feature doesn't work.. but I'd rather manually lock all the doors, than be locked out.

Well. I decided to try it before putting back on the door panel. ...

After a few tries the damn thing locked itself again... :wtf: how can this be? It is nothing but the handle, the lock rod connecting to the latch, and the latch.. nothing else and it still locks by itself. The self locking bit is what tripped all the other locks to go via the sensor/power lock motor harness.

So what is left to do? the handle is a simple lever... a rod.. and a latch.. big deal... how can I fix this?

Ideas?

Cheers,
Mike
Click to expand...


I've covered this before a few times. There is a small spring similar to a clock spring that holds the lock knob in the up/unlocked position. That spring tends to break allowing the lock knob/rod to drop as soon as you touch the door handle trigger or turn the key in the lock. If the relay for the central locking is in place, all the doors suddenly lock. What you need to do is replace the latch mechanism inside the driver's door. As long as the replacement latch mechanism still has that small spring in place, the problem will be solved.
 
Well problem solved.. 2many hit the nail on the head. [I took the whole mess out of the door.. a PITA to get out, but I got it..] I took it in to the bench and had a closer look.. As mentioned I found the small clock spring tab was broken off and useless... So, not having a replacement, I decided to try and bend a new leg on the broken side. I also had to twist the spring around a bit to build tension to regain the upward tension on the lever. I found that with the spring missing, gravity eventually allows the lock knob and it's rod to overcome the lever and operate the lock feature. My modified spring seems to be working... Amazing how this little spring caused so much headache. Thanks for the replies. Perhaps this could be a sticky if it's a common problem. Maybe I can get my son here to upload the photos I took thru his photobucket. I got a few good picks of the spring..

Cheers,
Mike
 
I didn't have to remove the glass to get to it.. just put the window up. It wasn't the easiest thing, but I got it taken care of. Getting the connector clip to the door release arm back on, took the longest to get fiddled back in place.
 
Was there a plastic anti-theft guard protecting the key lock? I was able to get the plastic guard out when replacing the key locks on my 88 765, but I tried for about 3 hours to get the guard back in place. Finally, I tried taking the glass out so that I could see what I was doing. When I changed the lock on the passenger side it only took 30 minutes including removing and installing the glass.
 
Ah yes... that must have been the long hard black plastic channel looking thing. I took that out, but could not get it back in correctly... It would not seat up at the upper corner, right near the bottom edge of the window glass. My son was also helping me jiggle it around and try to get it back in place, but it was getting both very cold and dark outside quickly, so i left it out. It seems to work fine. Amazing how that broken little clock spring thing screws things up. I'm def going to keep this sort of stuff out of the 750 wagon I'm junking/stripping. :-P It always seems the little stuff hits you the hardest, when nothing else will quite do the job.

Thanks again for the replies!

Cheers,
Mike

I'll see if I can get pix added to help others out...
 
Pap said:
Ah yes... that must have been the long hard black plastic channel looking thing. I took that out, but could not get it back in correctly... It would not seat up at the upper corner, right near the bottom edge of the window glass. My son was also helping me jiggle it around and try to get it back in place, but it was getting both very cold and dark outside quickly, so i left it out. It seems to work fine. Amazing how that broken little clock spring thing screws things up. I'm def going to keep this sort of stuff out of the 750 wagon I'm junking/stripping. :-P It always seems the little stuff hits you the hardest, when nothing else will quite do the job.

Thanks again for the replies!

Cheers,
Mike

I'll see if I can get pix added to help others out...
Click to expand...

That isn't just a lock guard. That is the lower channel that guides the glass. It is a PITA to replace. What you need to do is remove the plastic vapor barrier from the door and place a light in the door shell so you can see what you are doing. To put the glass guide back in place you actually bring it into place in a curving path. The top edge of it against the back/jamb area of the shell, the bottom towards the front of the door. As you move the top edge toward the top of the door, you move the bottom end toward the back of the door. When you can actually see what you are doing, you will see why you have to do this. The lower plastic channel has to slip behind the end of the upper steel channel. Once you know how to do it, the installation only takes a minute tops.
 
Quick and Dirty Option

I wrestled out the door latch assembly out of our '95 945T
(next time i do it will definitely go with the "just go ahead and remove the window" )


The latch assembly was missing the clock spring that holds up the manual push/pull locking knob and rod


After messing with it for a while the simplest approach appeared to be putting a few wraps of electrical tape around the manual push/pull locking knob

the electrical tape gives an interference fit with the interior panel grommet that it passes through.

the simple electrical tape fix has been working for a week now with no signs of giving out

hide-a-key in place for eventual circumstance when the tape job needs adjustment

have not tried it but other idea i had was to place a rubber band or tension spring behind the interior door panel that would pull that same manual lock/unlock knob/rod hard against the grommet -------- basically there needs to be something that keeps that rod from moving up or down once the OEM clock spring is gone
 
This thread answers the same problem I have had for a couple of years in my 1995 940.

The pictures of the spring and latch assembly would be a great addition.

Thank you.
 
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