How to Replace Front Door Lock Actuator 2007-09 Chevy Suburban

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We're going to actually hit our dome lamp override, which just turns off the dome lamp. Then we're going to start up here at the corner. You can use a plastic trim tool, but I can just get my fingers behind here, pull straight out and off. You want to avoid pulling it this way, because as you can see this broke off in there. It still has two clips left though, so it'll secure fine. Then we're going to remove three other trim panels. And behind the door handle, put a small screwdriver in here, pry the bottom out and bring that out. You can see a 10mm bolt there. Then behind the door pull, use a small screwdriver to pull that out. Two more 10mm bolts are in there. Then your door lock, you want to kind of pull up a little bit and pry with a small flat blade screwdriver. That comes up and off. Make sure you retrieve that little piece if it flies out. If this comes out, just retrieve it and don't put it all the way in. Just put it like that. Additionally, you need to pull up your trim panel, plastic trim tool available on 1AAuto.com and put it in the back and pull up.

Okay, and then work it in at the front as well. You can see there's two clips at the front and rear. If you don't have a trim tool, but you have strong fingernails, you can get it out, and then just pull straight up on front as well. Then there's four harnesses to disconnect and you might have more. If you have more options, just press the tabs and pull out. Use a 10mm socket with ratchet and extension, and remove those three 10mm bolts. These ones may stay in there after you get them loosened up. And in that case, they'll just fall down, and you can retrieve them after you take the door panel off.

Now, there's a series of clips around the edge. I usually start at the top, pull straight out, and just work your hand down. Pull firmly. Then the bottom and the side, and then door panel can come up and off. And then you'll want to disconnect your door handle, which is a matter of pressing on the tabs. There's two tabs, so press one, pull through, rotate around. Press on the other one. That allows you to move that back, bring it up and around, and your door panel comes off.

We're going to take our window master switch and we're going to plug it back in so we can put the window up. These plugs here are coded, meaning they have little slots that line up, so they'll only plug in one way because we won't get three plugs, but there's more than three spots. This has some ears here that match up with this connector here. The same thing for this one. It only matches with these. If you try to put it in the wrong ones, it won't fit, so you've got to find the right one and it'll slide in. I'm going to just turn the ignition on and put the window up. Turn the ignition off. You can unplug this switch again so it's not dangling and in your way. Just put it aside so it doesn't get broken.

Now to get to the bolts that are on the backside here, we have to pull this water barrier off. Let's get some sticky, like strip caulk stuff. We'll just sort of peel it off. It'll just kind of go back on there. If it's really sticky, you can take a razor blade and just cut it as you're pulling it away. But just sort of gently work it off so you don't rip this film. For the most part you can reuse this. It would still be sticky, but you may want to get some new strip caulk to put on here and replace it, so just be aware of that when you take it off.

Okay, so the first thing we're going to do before we loosen the outside door handle is to undo it from this lock rod while it's still attached to the car. It'll make it a little bit easier. We're going to use a flat headed screwdriver and this little lock tab, just kind of going to push it out and at the same time try to pop it off. I can get another hand in there just like this. There it is. It's a little tricky, but once you get it, it pops right off. All right, so now it's nice and free.

Now we need to get to the two bolts that hold the outside door handle on. There's one in here. There's one underneath this rubber cover. We're just going to use a plastic prying tool to just pop this cap off, and just put that aside so you don't lose it. Then we take our 10 millimeter socket and ratchet, put through that opening in the door panel, going to start to loosen it. You can try not to drop the bolt in there, but the door panel is pretty wide open if you drop it. Now we're going the other 10 millimeter bolt. Now what you want to do with your hand that you're not using with the ratchet is just put it on the outside door handle so it doesn't fall as you loosen it. To get this door handle out now you have to slide it to the front and then lift it out. On the backside, help feed it out. Let's get another little tab so if you twist it down and then you need to feed out. Disconnect it from this arm here.

To remove the lock, the door lock actuator, which is also the latch we're going to start by taking out this T30 Torx from the door. Once you remove the two screws it's going to start to get loose, so before you remove the third one, we want to just reach in and hold it so it doesn't fall. Now we're going to go inside the door and work on it. Now that we removed the bolts that are holding it in, we're going to take out this grommet here, that's one of the actuator rods, because we're going to pull the whole actuator rod out with the door lock actuator and latch, feed it down through there.

We're going to undo this cable here. This is what actuates your inside door handle. We're going to squeeze that in. Squeeze the other side. Now that that's loose, it'll pop right off. Place that aside. We're just going to slide this down. Now there is a connector here that it needs to come off of it that has a lock on the top. We're going to pop this top lock off of this with a flat bladed screwdriver. That goes down pretty deep, so you've got to really make sure it's all the way up so it's released. Once it's released, it'll slide right off. Then you just have to maneuver this out of the door panel. That's the door lock actuator and latch.

Here we have the old door lock actuator and the new door lock actuator and latch from 1aauto.com. As you can see, it does not come with these actuator rods, so you will have to swap those over. That's as simple as you just kind of work them out of the rubber grommets, just like that. Place the new one over here. Do the same with the other one. As you can see, these are basically identical, and this will replace a broken door lock actuator or latch in your vehicle.

Now we're going to install our new door lock latch and actuator. It's very important this cable gets run on the outside of the window tracks, when the window comes down it doesn't hit it, and so does the wiring. The easiest way to do this is to feed this up and in with the actuator rods. First, I'm going to attach, going to attach the cable. That's going to go through in there. Snap it in, hold it, and popped out.

Now I'm going to put the electrical connector on. There's two pins on either side of the socket. The two pins match up with these and the lock. Slide it on, push it all the way in, as far as it will go, and then you're going to push the lock down, and the lock is going to lock it in. Now we're going to feed the control locks back up. This one's going to go up to the top. Might have to fish your hands in and out of the door panel. There's that one. Inside one is going to go up, with the outside one for the outside door handle is going to go up, and you can just kind of hook it on the outside of the door panel, just like that so it doesn't fall back in.

We're just going to pop this grommet back in here so we don't forget about it. Now that the door latch and actuator is in there, we're going to slide it up into position. Its bottom hole is slotted, but we're just going to line it up where it was originally. You can see the marks from the paint where the bolt heads were. I'm just going to get this one started by hand, then the other two. I have these started by hand. I'm going to take my T30 Torx and my ratchet, we'll tighten them down.

Now we're going to reinstall the door handle. You can start by fishing in the door lock actuator rod. Then you want to connect it to this one. That just pushes over like that. You need to sort of maneuver it in. This you can push it spring-loaded to get it go under there. Now remember there was a hook on the back of this, so it kind of has to go to the forward position a little bit and then slide back, and that's installed from the outside. Now we need to go to the back side and install the 10 millimeter bolts that hold it on. The torque for the little bolts that holds the door handle on is 53 inch-pounds. If you don't have an inch pound torque wrench, just make sure you tighten them very gently. Use your wrist, not your arm as you tighten them down. As you just feel them to get tight, you should stop because if you go too far, they will strip out the plastic or crack the plastic.

To put these 10 millimeter bolts back through the door to help you not drop them into the door while you're trying to feed them in there, you can take a little bit of blue masking tape and just sort of tape them so they stay in there. Just fold that over so it fits through. You kind of just have to fish it in. You can see the hole, is basically straight in from this opening. I recommend doing this by hand first to make sure you don't cross thread them, and you'll just feel it, just hold your hand on the outside door handle so you don't push it out and just start to thread them in. The torque on these is going to be 53 inch pounds so I'm just going to thread them in as strong as I can by my fingers, and then I'll come back with the torque wrench once I have the other side in. We get the other bolt in. You kind of have to feed it around the window regulator cable. That one feels pretty tight. Now I'm going to take our inch pound torque wrench. I've set it to 53 inch-pounds. That's it. It doesn't take a lot of torque. Now that these bolts are tight you're going to take that grommet, put it back in the hole.

All right, after you reinstall the door handle, you now need to reconnect the door handle actuator rod to the latch and actuator assembly. Let's just kind of slide in here. You just kind of roll it up and over, it will lock down. All right, now we're ready to install this back on the door panel. We're going to feed our wires through for the door switches and mirror. Can see the little channel that it was in, and you just sort of push it down in.

First, you want to just make sure that your bolts come out and you retrieve them. There are two tabs here that just go right in to the door and rest conveniently so that's supported. Then you can put this up. Make sure you have four harnesses that poke up through the opening, here, or more if you have more options on your truck. Then reconnect your cable, slide the ball in, pull out, and push.

Make sure all your harnesses are up and through. Now that your cable's on, this ridge actually needs to go down into this channel here. So, hit the panel up into place. A little higher, you see it slides down. It should go down even. This should come right up through your lock rod. Then, if you look back in, you can actually see this pin here lines right up, and you can just go right around and lock the pins into place. So we want to be able to take these bolts and put them in. They’re a little bit loose, though. So, if you just take a piece of painter's tape, put it on the head of the bolt, stuff your socket on there, and it stays much better. You can guide it right in and start it out. If the painter's tape does stay behind, it's not a big deal, but tighten it by hand first to make sure it's in, and then tighten it up.

This one is pretty easy to get into place. Put the lockdown on. Snap that in place. This one, the round side goes underneath. Put this into place. Switch panel, these all only go in one way. So, like this one won't plug into there. It won't plug into there. It'll only plug into there. Then this one will only plug into there. This one can go in place. The last one, again, it has three tabs. One of ours is broken. Make sure it goes right straight in, kind of look in behind.

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