Fix It and keep it

On a 1995 Toyota Corolla the power door lock on one of the back doors stopped working, the lock wouldn't even move by hand. It was actually stuck in the unlocked position and it would not move when it was pushed down manually so there was no way to lock the door.

After taking the door panel off I checked the locking mechanism and it seemed to be unobstructed so there was no real reason why it wouldn't work until I checked the locking actuator and found it to be seized up and unable to move at all.

I removed the actuator, a small gear driven solenoid made by GeCom. Carefully removing the cover from the GeCom unit I found two broken plastic gears inside the unit. The teeth were broken right off from what looked like plastic fatigue. How the actuator works is when the door is locked there is a constant pressure on the gears from a spring inside the unit holding the lock down. All of that pressure just wore the gears out after ten years of service.

One thing you can do to be able to use the lock manually is to remove the actuator and leave it off, you just have to remember to lock the door by hand when you leave the car. I had tried that for a few months and got tired of it so I put a remote door lock kit on all of the locks so now one button locks them all.
It gives peace-of-mind knowing all of the kids are locked in when driving through town.
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