Freelander 1 Changing passenger door lock - 3door

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rob_bell

Well-Known Member
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London
I’ve just changed the passenger door lock on my 2001 Hippo and I’ll post how I did it here as I couldn’t find a good guide anywhere (and Haynes was as vague as usual).

The reason for the need to change was that the passenger door would lock with the central locking, but not unlock. It’s a common problem with these Bosch locks: the reverse motor burns out. It’s repairable, but looking at the guides it looks like too much of a phaff when second hand parts can be had cheaply (with the risk of imminent failure, but you pay your money and you make your choice!)

Fortunately, this is a quite straight forward task :)
 
The first step is to remove the interior door card. This is pretty straight forward: on the 3 door all but the interior door handle screws are exposed. They are all T40s and are located around the periphery - predominantly on the lower and rear edge:

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Someone had been here before and had replaced the T40 screws with Philips ones. Once seen, impossible to un-see. Luckily @andyfreelandy popped a few screws in the post for me so I could sort that issue out :D

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Removing these screws is as simple as it seems :)

There is also a screw behind the interior door handle - again, easily dealt with:


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The interior door grab handle is more of a pain. It has a plastic trim that needs prising off. And it’s cold today, so that makes things worse.

I used plastic trim removing tools.

Sadly, whoever was there before me used screw drivers which has damaged the plastics a little. Ugh.

you have to be pretty brutal getting this off: there are 6 tangs: 3 on each side, which you can hopefully see on this photo:
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And lo! This missing T40 screws!!! The numpty had used these instead of the Philips screws to put the handle back on!!!

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Handle off, you can then aim to remove the door trim.

The door tweeter trim is held on by one fir tree clip towards the top centre and the lower end by a tang that goes behind the door trim. It comes off easily. You can either detach the cables or remove the tweeter (it is a screw fit)

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The only thing holding the door trim on now are four fir tree clips along the top edge of the door card - carefully but firmly tug and remove.

As you can see, someone had been at this door lock before!

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still, that makes it easier for me. I binned that old duct tape.
 
From experience, it is much easier to now unscrew the lock from the door frame: it makes undoing the cables and actuator rods far easier.
Three T30 screws:

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I then disconnected the electrical plug and tried this on the replacement motor to ensure it worked:

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It did :D

the rods and actuators are simple to remove now.
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I noticed that the interior door handle cable end had some surface rust. To stop the pull eye rotting out entirely, I sprayed it with some black smoothrite for some protection. Then it is a question of reassembling to your replacement lock

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And then it just a question of reassembling :D

of course, before putting the door card back, ensure everything works: interior handle, exterior handle and central locking. Happy days: mine does! :D

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I then put the water shedder back as best I could and used fresh 3M duct tape. And now everything has been rebuilt using the correct T40 screws. Perfect! :D

Happy bunny.

Time for a cup of tea and think about whether to start the next task!!!
 
Definitely the easier of the two Andy. I’ve undertaken a handle swap and door lock swap on previous occasions on my MGF, so have had the “pleasure” of that experience before! Lol
 
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