Mystery spring in driver's side door latch. (1990 w/power locks)

[Jeff_Birt]

Pulled the driver's side door latch out to clean off decades of grease/dirt cement. I found a small loose spring inside which I'm guessing I broke when cleaning.

I 'think' it connects to the exterior door handle lever inside (close up pic of lever inside) and then hooks to the top coming out the larger hole and into the teeny hole (top view with me holding it.)

Found a pic online of the later Explorer latch with a spring coming out the top so I think I have that part correct. If anyone happens to have one of these loose and can look at what that spring connects to, I would be grateful.

 

[Jeff_Birt]

I bent a new hook on the end of the spring and then connected the other end to the top hole. After looking at all the places the spring could reach the only place it could really hook was the lever in the close up. It did seem to hook there fine.

What was odd is that without the spring in place the latch seemed to work as expected. With the spring connected something was different and it took a few minutes to figure it out. With the spring hooked up the door will lock automatically when it is closed! Looking at the owner's manual I don't see this 'auto-lock' mentioned. Is this how the latches originally worked?

 

[Uncle Gump]

No... they shouldn't automatically lock. That would spell disaster and lock keys in the vehicle.

Been awhile since I've looked at one of these latches... so I just can't help much.

 

[Jeff_Birt]

No... they shouldn't automatically lock. That would spell disaster and lock keys in the vehicle.

Been awhile since I've looked at one of these latches... so I just can't help much.

Thanks. It seemed like a pretty stupid 'feature' to me. I have seen cars where you had to hold the exterior door handle up while closing the door or it would not lock but not an 'auto-lock'.

I'll take apart the passenger side this weekend and try to discover where the mystery spring goes.

 

[Jeff_Birt]

Here is where the mystery spring goes. Had to full the passenger side latch to figure it out.