jasonodsky

Great write up and good pictures. Thanks to the OP I saved $500+
Mine had the collar instead of the gear attached to the motor. Easy to remove with a vise and prybar. Whole job setup to tools put away took 1 hour and 30 minutes.

SSThompson

Where did you purchase your motor?

dnelli

eBay....even the puller was purchased from eBay.

10lexISR6

iTrader: (1)

Just did mine! It was just as described. The only thing missing was how to move the lower rail for the window so to maneuver the door lock motor out. There is 1 (10mm) bolt that holds that in place, then you can swing that sucker out of the way and bam! Your in! Or out... anyhow, strangely enough, the front right door motor went out instead of the drivers side door. You would think the other way around right? Anyhow, I bought a pack of 4 servo motors from eBay as directed, so as 1 by 1 go out, I'll replace them. But so far this thing is working super great!!! Thank you for the intuitive instructions and effort on your part my friend.

apichartv

Moved to the right thread ,,,,
Salim



Hello to ALL,

I am a new member, have read and seen many good info here.

I have just purchased a used 1999 RX-300, with ~86,000 miles, run great (knok on wood !).

The only problem I have is :- the master keyless remote will not open or lock the driver door, have to manually insert the key to key-hole (to open or lock the driver door). The keyless remote works with all other doors.

Is this due to a bad actuator in the driver door, or something else ?

And suggestions and/or opinions are welcome.

Thanks to ALL,
Apichart

hypervish

I went ahead and re-did my rear driver side door lock actuator. I originally did a piggyback actuator on it a few years back, but it failed about a year ago. I've been meaning to do it for a while now, and I finally got around to it. This time I decided to replace the motor inside the OEM actuator in order to hopefully get 10 years of life out of it, unlike the piggybacked actuator.

It took about 15 minutes to open the actuator case by hand using a box cutter. Not long at all. I didn't use glue to hold it back together either. The two screws should be plenty strong enough.

I was able to pull the actuator assembly out from in front of the window track, by just loosening the one bolt on the front for the track a little bit.

I had some trouble getting the plastic worm gear back into the sleeve, I thought i had ruined the collar/sleeve when pulling it off. But with a bit of force, it went on. I was pretty scared there for a minute.

Here's some pictures, which show the motor and how far the collar was on mine. It may help someone in the future who forgets to measure their collar on the motor.

The Actuator:


Measurement of Collar/Sleeve on Motor: (It was about 1/8 inch)

gkfung

Hi Salim, you definitely will need the gear puller, the gear of mine is so tight fitted on the shaft. Without the gear puller it is almost impossible to take it off.

gkfung

I have just changed mine, I found out that in order to take apart the plastic box, it was not to bad. I had to broke off a section of a sharp blade, about 3 to 4 mm wide, and hammer it down with the sharp end between the plastic where you want to separate like a chisel. Then you go around as you go, but before not to hammer it too deep, you may damage the parts inside. I took mine apart in 10 minutes and it leave a very nice separation and it still fit perfectly after you change the actuator motor.

gkfung

I have just changed mine 2001 RX300, there was a metal rail next to the lock assembly, I think is it is for the power window, and you must anchor it correctly after your lock assembly is in place. The rail is a metal rail sliding through the window rubber, it can be slide in and out of the window rubber. The top end has a little piece sticking out and the bottom part has a screw hole for you to attach it to inside of the mater frame of the door with a 10 mm screw. I do not know if 2002 is the same design or not. I hope I can help you somewhat.

fcadams

I have a 2000 RX300 and this worked great. I bought 2 motors for $8 and replaced it in about 4 hours. The openning of the plastic box holding the motor was the hardest part.

Thanks for the post!

JonLee67

Thanks to this thread and all the people contributing bits of information, I swapped out my door lock motor on my passenger-side rear door of my 2000 RX300 this weekend. We were living without the door lock working for over a year and it's so nice to have it working again - and for only $16 in parts and additional tools. I did break one of the clips while removing the window switch wood panel while removing it, but that was my fault. It still stays in place just fine, however. If you take your time and gently pull the panel from the top and bottom straight up at the same time, you should be fine.

The door lock motor from EBay (Item #121126472367) for $6.37 fit perfectly without modification. Had to buy a torx ratchet for $10 to remove the assembly, but did avoid having to buy the gear puller by using two hammer claws to separate the gear from the motor. There's just enough of a gap between the gear and the motor to fit the tips of two claws pulling in opposite directions to separate the gear from the motor. The gear fit perfectly on the new motor by tapping it lightly with the hammer.

As mentioned above, at least on the rear doors, there is a metal rail where the window slides. I had to remove both the top and bottom 10mm screws in order to provide enough room to slide the lock assembly out - it was still a tight squeeze, however.

The hardest part is probably opening the case containing the motor. However, as others have mentioned, just take your time to score the perimeter of the case with a sharp object - this part could be a little dangerous, so just take your time. Once scored around the perimeter, I used a small wood chisel and gently tapped around the perimeter of the case and eventually, it just popped open.

Everything else was pretty straight-forward.

Thx again.

dnelli

so....after replacing the FRONT and REAR Drivers side door actuator motors, my rear door actuating seems to be intermittent. WTH is this about? The replaced motors are only a couple of years old. Could they have failed so quickly? Any advice would be appreciated. I have another set of motors that i purchased just in case...but would like to spare myself from this project as I have many others....

dnelli

Could it be an under powered key FOB....? I noticed that it seems to lock/unlock using my set of keys, but when my wife uses her keys she said it sometimes locks and sometimes does not....

salimshah

The key remote does nothing special for ONE lock. Compare the intensity of red led between two different remotes. The range reduces as the battery gets drained. If it is one lock that is intermittent then you need to check its wiring or replace the lock motor.

Salim

LivLrg

I wish I had seen your comment about driving a day or two without the door panel attached to test out the mechanism. I closed the panel, shut the door and now the door doesn't open. Any tips?