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casualemt · 10-13-2021, 09:16 AM

2005 Journey, the remote door lock quit working. We are on a trip, currently parked for a month outside Springfield MO. The remote works and locks the outside compartments as normal, when I try to lock the entry door, the lights flash as usual, but no clicking, no locking. I can still lock the door with the key. Problem is the same with either remote.
Anyone have a suggestion as to where I should start looking? I have tools and a vom and plenty of troubleshooting skills, just not sure where to begin.
Thanks in advance
Rich C

Robert36 · 10-13-2021, 10:32 AM

you can start at the coor connections. Look at he door frame where the hinges are, ther are two silver colored buttons that are the electrical connections for the door lock. these are spring loaded and somtimes the spring corrodes from water intrusion . the next step is to remove the door cover and get at the locking solenoid located near the door lock. test solenoid with an outside source of 12 volts . make sure you reverse the test leads to make sure the solenoid works in both directions. thats two sources of failure that i have seen.

FIRE UP · 10-13-2021, 11:28 AM

Good explanation Robert36,
Yes, those contacts are called "Jamb tacs". And they can get somewhat coated, corroded and dirty from time to time. I'd start by wiping them with some Lacquer thinner or alcohol etc. Then, a small tooth brush sized wire brush, and finally, if those don't get the tips of those buttons clean, I'd use some 320 grit sand paper. That's not too course and will clean them thoroughly.

Do check to see if you have any 12V at those buttons when you trigger the remotes. If you do, and the solenoid still does not function after a good cleaning of those buttons, well then, you're gonna have to dive into the innards of that door. It's not very hard. The removal of the interior panel is a piece of cake. Then test the solenoid as Robert36 has suggested. Please post back so that we know what was your cause of trouble.
Scott

emiddleb · 10-13-2021, 12:34 PM

If the door is locked, can you unlock it with the remote?

The power to the door lock/unlock, bay lock/unlock, etc are supplied by a bank of relays, one for each function. If it will unlock but not lock, it might point to the one relay being bad. If neither function works, the advice already give is a better starting point.

FIRE UP · 10-13-2021, 10:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by emiddleb

If the door is locked, can you unlock it with the remote?

The power to the door lock/unlock, bay lock/unlock, etc are supplied by a bank of relays, one for each function. If it will unlock but not lock, it might point to the one relay being bad. If neither function works, the advice already give is a better starting point.

emiddleb,
Your coach is an '04 Vectra, correct? If so, it's the exact sister ship to our '04 Itasca Horizon. Ours is the 36GD with the CAT C-7. I was wondering, where this "Bank of relays" is that you say controls the door/compartment doors etc.?

All of our relays, circuit breakers, MMDC. Smart Wheel control module and, Security Control Module (Remote control for door and compartment doors) is in the left front compartment, along with a few hundred miles of wiring. I've been in and out of that compartment a few zillion times for this and that But, maybe I missed them but, I don't recall seeing any relays for the front door or compartment doors. Is that where you're talking about?
Scott

P.S. Never mind, I found them in the wiring diagrams. What an air head. I must have looked right at those relays a hundred times and just didn't realize that the ones for the door/compartment doors were right there. Man is sucks getting old.
Scott

emiddleb · 10-14-2021, 07:39 AM

Scott, yeah, that hidden compartment is a treasure chest of goodies, but you need a map (wiring diagram) and compass to find everything. I was digging for my TriMark box when I found those relays at the bottom, buried under a rat's nest of wiring. Winne engineers certainly designed these RVs for ease-of-building, not ease-of-maintenance.

casualemt · 10-15-2021, 08:42 AM

Thanks guys for the great input! Quick too..
Armed with the troubleshooting advice, I tried the easiest first, clean the jamb contacts…nope, not it..got my VOM and checked for voltage at the contacts..push the remote, get 12v…removed the inside door panel, checked the inside wiring, looks good…I then removed the lock actuator, a little tricky because I didn’t want to take the whole lock mechanism off, and there is a plastic cover over that area, that obscures the view of the actuator connection to the rod that operates the lock, it is thin plastic, so I could easily bend it back enough to disconnect the rod…I was worried about the rod coming out of the lock mechanism while disconnected from the actuator, I took a piece of tape and loosely taped up the rod so it wouldn’t fall off. Remembering that the rod will still need to move back and forth because we needed to lock the door with the key, like I said I kept the tape loose enough so it wouldn’t tear off..
Anyway I checked the actuator on my car battery, it would move about 1/8” in one direction, and nothing in the other…bad actuator. Here’s an interesting side note, I’m not far from a camping world, so I took it there to see if they maybe had one, the parts girl did some research on her computer, and although they didn’t have one, she said she found them on Amazon, and even printed out the webpage. Wow, that was nice, and unexpected! Also, a package of 2 actuators was less than $10…they’re being delivered to the RV park I’m staying at today..
I love the IRV2 forum!!!

FIRE UP · 10-15-2021, 11:06 AM

Hey Casual,
Wow, that's great! Thank you for getting back here and letting us know what you found as the cause of your issue. So many never do that and we never know what the answer(s) are to problems so we can't apply what we learn when WE have possibly the same issue(s). By the way, I just looked at some of my pics of the innards of my door and, I can't see the actuator. I see the wires from the Jamptacs leading up into a section that I think, conceals the actuator. I've had the door lock mechanism completely apart due to the fact that the outside paddle handle would malfunction and we'd be locked out, on several occasions.

I remedied that but, I'd like to see the actuator just in case I run into the same issue you've had. I'm assuming that the actuator/solenoid is not all that hard to get to.
Scott

casualemt · 10-15-2021, 03:38 PM

So I got the 2 new lock solenoids for $7.99 from Amazon, today I installed the new one and although it looks identical to the old one, I needed to look closer…the distance from the first screw hole is about 3/16” longer on the new one…which means the connecting rod doesn’t retract as far as it needs to to unlock the lock…luckily the journey comes with a ladder and a drivers window big enough to crawl into the RV. Had to climb in and remove the connecting rod and manually unlock the door. I ended up removing the new actuator and drilling new 3/16” holes around a quarter inch nearer the hinge side of the door, and re installing the new actuator, worked like a charm….minor note; check the orientation of the wires on the new actuator, if you have them hooked up backwards, it locks when you push unlock, and vise versa.. the actuator is out for lock, and in for unlock…
Hope this isn’t too wordy…

casualemt · 10-15-2021, 03:54 PM

If you look at the upper right of the first photo, you see two smaller horizontal silver screws, right next to the plastic “plate” over the lock mechanism, those two screws are holding the actuator, also the wire has a connector on it, just pull it out, and unclip it..

emiddleb · 10-15-2021, 07:33 PM

Thanks for the update and the photos. Could you post the part you ordered from Amazon, in case others/me have the same problem in the future?

casualemt · 10-16-2021, 07:25 AM

https://www.amazon.com/gp/bestseller..._bs_15730431_1

I think this is the link, the ones I got were the #1 bestseller, 2 for $7.99…..

dickb46 · 10-19-2021, 05:52 PM

Scott, I'm interested in what you did to fix your door handle.
Ours did that last weekend also, locked us out climbed in through the drivers window.
It took me all the next day but I fixed ours.
The horizontal arm on the black outside half that pushes on the vertical inside arm was loose and going under the inside arm. I took the black outside piece entirely off and drilled a hole in the horizontal arm and ran a screw through it from the bottom, put a nut on the top of the screw (sort of made the arm 1/2" thick where it meets the vertical arm).
dick