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BACKGROUND: Kismetsdad posted (8/21/10) a tutorial, but the explanation and pictures were hosted off site and taken down by when I needed them in October 2015. My front passenger side lock started acting flaky, so this writeup is based on the front door. I assume the rear door is very similar. Please forgive the total lack of pictures. I hadn’t thought I was going to do a writeup – but the YouTube below will mostly make up for that.I am assuming that you will have watched YouTube: “$6 Toyota Highlander 2005 power door lock actuator fix repair”
to learn how to disassemble the lock actuator, remove and install the motor and reassemble. The general procedure from start to finish has many similarities to our LS430s, but there are specific differences that the following writeup deals with.
THINGS I USED:
Door lock motor: Mabuchi standard (short) length flat shaft FC280PC22125 - $6.50 on ebay delivered (verified Mar. 19, 2018).
Plastic trim tool removal set (optional, but a good idea) – Harbor freight or your local AutoZone etc
Chair to sit on in front of the door while doing most of the work.
Flashlight small enough that I could hold in my mouth and aim (needed those extra arms of the Indian goddesses)
Long large flat screwdriver (tape it to use instead of the trim removal tools)
Small screwdriver (tape it too if you want)
#2 philips head screwdriver
10mm socket
Torx T-30 bit - <$2 at Ace Hardware – I inserted it into a ¼” 6-point socket and called it good.
Pliers
Boxcutter/Xacto knife
Black electrical tape
Sharpie marker
Blue painter’s tape
Something to hold the outside door handle open. I used a couple of sealed flexible tubes of silicon and adhesive.
Strong piece of wire like handle of a paint bucket – for pulling and pushing actuator rod in assy/disassy.
Something about the height of the bottom of the door PANEL to rest it on while disconnecting wires and cables. –---could be the jack with something soft on top.
TURN OFF THE DOME LIGHT so you don’t run down the battery if this job is not completed in one go.
Use your own method for keeping track of screws/bolts. I use the blue painters tape and Sharpie.
WHAT YOU WILL COMPETELY REMOVE IN THIS PROCESS (not counting wiring connectors and fasteners). There is NOTHING else that needs to be completely removed to do this job.
1. Plastic cover at inside door opening handle
2. Woodgrain switch panel with lock and window switches
3. Inside door panel. The inside door handle surround does not get removed.
4. Flat electrical box inside door (avoids pulling off plastic sheeting)
5. Door latch with lock actuator from inside door housing.
REMOVE THE DOOR PANEL
Overview: There are 3 bottom screws, 4 screws on the panel and a half-dozen or so push fasteners. All of the screws can be removed with the #2 Phillips.
1. Open the door fully and sit down on your chair facing the inside of the door
2. Remove 3 black screws with hex and Phillips heads from the bottom of the door panel. They are in a rubber seal along the bottom of the door panel (not the main door seal).
3. Remove the plastic cover at the chrome inside door pull by prying it out from the end where the door pull lever hinges.
4. Remove screw you see behind the removed cover.
5. Remove the woodgrain switch panel from the armrest by prying it out from the rear or the inside rear of the panel. Slide it to the rear and lift it out. It cannot be lifted from the front.
6. Remove the two electrical connectors from the switches.
7. Remove the big brass screw you see towards the rear of the opening in the arm rest.
8. Look under the rear of the armrest to find and remove another large brass screw.
9. Look in the front of the air duct hole at the upper front of the door to find and remove another screw.
10. With those 7 screws removed, all that’s left is to pry loose the push fasteners along the front and back edges of the door panel. Slide a wide flat tool (could even be a narrow (taped) putty knife to find and pry loose the 3 or 4 fasteners along front and rear edges. This will leave the door panel hanging from the top.
11. Prepare something to set the bottom edge of the door panel on after you’ve taken it loose.
12. The door panel comes off by pulling the bottom edge out a little and lifting the back corner up a couple of inches. Then you can take the top front corner loose and set it on your support.
13. Remove 3 electrical connectors: two at the top towards the front and one at the bottom powering the inside door light. Do something so that you know that the top loose connectors go to those two upper sockets on the door panel.
14. Two cables are attached to the back of the chrome handle on the door panel. Note which one is on top and connected to the door lock – after you’ve detached it, label it “door lock” to avoid mixing them up. There’s a threaded plastic piece at the end of each cable housing. These can be fairly easily pried - pushed out of the piece that holds them in place, making it easy to detach the cable ends from the lock and door opening lever. If you get the wire part of the cable perpendicular to the door panel you will be able to simply lift it (and the ball end) free of the mechanisms.
15. Done – set the door panel aside. – Assembly is just the reverse of this.
PREPARATIONS FOR REMOVING THE DOOR LATCH/DOOR LOCK ACTUATOR FROM THE DOOR
This is a BIG piece – significantly larger than shown in the Highlander YouTube.
1. Towards the rear of the door midway up/down is an aluminum electrical box. Remove the 2 10mm-head screws and let the box hang loose.
2. Pull back the plastic sheeting (starting from the upper rear) held in place with the sticky black goop. Pull it back far enough to complete expose the upper and lower openings into the door. Pull the lock and door opening cables through the plastic sheet as you pull it back.
3. To the rear and a little below where the box in 1. was, you’ll find a translucent plastic T with a black cable vertically taped to it (in my case with red tape). Cut the tapes on the T to free the cable. You’ll re-tape it on reassembly. There’s a similar T at a horizontal portion of the same cable but you can leave it alone.
4. Near the bottom of the upper opening on the inside of the door, find a horizontal cable and find the clamp that’s holding it to the door. With your pliers squeeze the prongs sticking through the door to free the cable inside the door.
REMOVING THE DOOR LATCH/DOOR LOCK ACTUATOR FROM INSIDE THE DOOR.
7 bolts are involved – 5 Torx T-30 for the latch, 2 10mm for the window guide. There is a physical interplay / interlocking among the door latch, window guide and cable that you just freed.
1. Remove 5 Torx bolts holding the door latch to the door. 3 of them are brass and located on the rear edge of the door (as in the YouTube) above and below the latch opening. The other 2 are the only Torx bolts on the inside face of the door. They are located a few inches above and below the latch opening and something like 7-10 inches in from the back edge of the door. They are aluminum color and are very short. Now the door latch is free to move, but leave it where it is. Note that there’s a metal tab sticking thru the door next to one of them and you have to push the door latch in to free that tab from the hole.
2. Loosen rear metal window guide that is within the door. Near the bottom of the door on the back edge remove the 10mm bolt. It’s the only one in the area. You have freed the bottom end of the window track.
3. Now (a picture would be nice!) you need to find and ALMOST completely remove the 10mm bolt that holds the top of the metal window track. It’s maybe 3-4 inches down from the window ledge and similar distance from the rear of the door. You can reach into the lower opening and find the metal window guide track. With the top screw very loose but not out, you can pivot the track forward as needed. DO NOT REMOVE THE TRACK. I removed the track. That was a very bad idea and made a LOT more frustration in reassembling.
4. Put something in the outside door handle to hold it fully open – which will lower the attachment point you’re dealing with in the next step.
5. Pull the door latch assembly in the door a bit forward and down. Now with a flashlight through the upper opening, pointing to the back and up a bit, you will see the vertical metal rod going up from the latch assy. It has a right angle bend at the top. The top is captured by a swiveling clip that you can easily pry off the rod with your long screwdriver. Push (rotate) the clip up and out of the way. Make a hook from your paint can handle or strong wire coat hanger and use it to pull the top of the rod out of the hole behind the clip you just moved. Make careful mental not of what that area looks like – the hole for the rod and the clip. You will want to make a different end (like most of a W) on your stout wire to let you push the rod back into the hole when you reassemble. This reassembly is the 2nd most difficult part of the whole process.
6. Either before or after the next step you can remove the electrical connector from the lower end of the door latch assy. It takes a very strong squeeze on the back side of the connector to release it.
7. Now the door latch is completely free to be removed. Pull it down and towards the front of lower opening. Manipulate the window guide and door latch together as you move both forward. There will be a point at which you can get the fat part of the door latch past the window guide. Try to note where the guide and door latch were when that was possible. I found this part of the reassembly the most difficult part of the process. It’s just tricky and fiddly.
8. Thread the door latch cables through the top opening to allow you to totally remove the door latch assembly from the door through the bottom opening.
REPAIRING THE DOOR LOCK ACTUATOR
Repair the door lock actuator with the new motor just as you see in the Highlander YouTube. That door latch assy is a little smaller, but all of the steps are similar and in most cases identical.
REASSEMBLE BY REVERSING THE ABOVE STEPS – You will have noticed that I made reassembly notes as I went along. Be happy that you were 1) have an operating door lock and 2) saved some pretty big bucks. My actuator was loud for a while but after a bit it quieted down just like the others.
I'm working on the same repair on my 2013 LS460 right now and taking a ton of pictures. Assuming it is a success I will post them all here with annotations. Thus far disconnecting the rod that attaches between the door handle and the latch assembly is the biggest pain. A big enough pain in fact that I'm currently waiting for my much more technically competent neighbor to get home and run an eye over it before I take it apart.
Is there a reason why my driver side key hole doesn’t work I replaced the door lock motor and the lock works now but the key hole does not work and my key doesn’t unlock or lock any doors what did I do wrong
pretty bummed I had to brake my passenger quarter window sighhh
Strangely I've had 3/4 door locks start to malfunction or not work completely on my car. This wouldn't be an issue if didn't take 2-3 hours per door if you're unfamiliar with the write-up as I am. I guess this is going to be keeping me busy during COVID-19...Sigh.
Update:
Sucesfully finshed the rear passenger(right side) door lock. Works flawlessly using the motor linked above from Amazon. I have taken pictures and some video and will try to post them after I complete them all. Overall, not too bad of a job, especially coming from a guy who does not consider him mechanically inclined whatsoever. There were some minor differences from what I saw when replacing the rear doors and I'll annotate at the end. Figuring out how to put the actuator back together was somewhat challenging if you forget the order in which you disassembled it. So, please take notes, pictures, and videos of things before and after you remove them.
It got easier everytime I did the job however, I will say each door has it's level of difficulty/frustration. I will update this post later on to give a more in depth overview here are a few things I noticed:
-Driver's side door is definitely the most challenging to fix. Its the angle the actuator sits on the door that makes it a tight fit upon reinstall. It took me about 45-60 mins to reinstall whereas all other doors took an average of 15-30 mins. One helpful tip I'd add is that as stated above, when removing the bolts for the window guide rail, avoid removing the top bolt if possible. I remover the top bolt thinking that it was gonna stay in place like the passenger side and boy...was I wrong. The rail got stuck sideways and was preventing the outside lever from opening.
- Take pictures BEFORE you start disassembling anything. Point or annotate what you will remove. This will save you much time during reassembly.
-You do NOT need to reconnect every wire prior to function check to see of the actuator function works.You can do this with the actuator outside of the door. All you simply have to do is flip the black latch on the bottom plate (I'll post pics later) and push the hanger looking hook that is attached to the actuator down and it will pop the latch open, if this works you have successfully reassembled your actuator. If not, refer back to your before pics and look to see how to reconfigure.
-If youd like to test the electric lock function with a key fob, you DO NOT have to plug all the wires back, the only wire needed to connect is the black connector that attaches to the bottom. After confirming that the actuator unlocks manually, you may proceed to install the actuator in the door and plug the black connector and close the door to see if the key fob unlocks the door.
-Learn how everything functions with the door lock system. I tinkered with somethings and it helped me troubleshoot when one of my outside doors handles was hesitant to return to the rest position. It turned out the actuator hook was loose inside its tab. So make sure when you install it, you listen for the audible click when you put it back in.
I'll try to fill out a better detailed post later with pics..I'm hanging it up for today.
Great write up. I just finished this job and it was fairly straight up and easy. My big hands got in the way and it was a bit fiddly getting the unit out and back into the door. The only other thing I had to do is glue the actuator together when before I reinstalled it. Once split apart it would not remain closed. A touch of glue solved that. Total time for the job was ~hour. Thanks again.
Just got this job done and have the same problem, key won’t fit in the key hole and actuator is super load and only works 40% of the time what did you do to fix it??
Originally Posted by Bsavage
Is there a reason why my driver side key hole doesn’t work I replaced the door lock motor and the lock works now but the key hole does not work and my key doesn’t unlock or lock any doors what did I do wrong
pretty bummed I had to brake my passenger quarter window sighhh
Just got this job done and have the same problem, key won’t fit in the key hole and actuator is super load and only works 40% of the time what did you do to fix it??
you have to remove the actuator unit form the door and line that up with the door handle key hole before you tighten anything up
I did this repair today. Very simple.
For the 2005+ model driver side front I had to remove the window guide to get out the actuator, but it was easy enough to put back in.
Didn't need to remove the box in the top right but all other instructions correct.
Ended up using a set of angle pliers to remove clip from attachment rod that goes to outer door handle.
Case was pried open, motor replaced, cleaned the traces, pushed out the contacts a touch, the and was resealed with super glue.
Motor actually was not completely dead just did not function under load.
Also fixed issue with remote door lock not always working and the auto-lock not working either.
03-19-18, 11:52 AM
LS430 $6.50 door lock actuator repair
