Driver's Door Lock Not Working

[davintosh]

This question is about an e34, but because the part in question is the same between it and the e32, I figured chances of getting a good answer was better here than with the e34 guys.

I bought a '90 535i last fall that had an issue with the driver's side lock; after a long winter, I finally got around to tearing into it, and am a bit puzzled by what I found, so I'm hoping someone here can give me some advice on getting it working.

The problem it has is that the inside lock knob doesn't move, and the driver's door won't lock. Using the key from the outside, it's possible to lock everything else, but not the driver's door. I figured at first that it was the latch mechanism, but when I pulled that out yesterday, it seemed to work fine. When I pulled the outside handle mechanism out, that appeared to be the problem. The lever that attaches to the lock actuator allows very little movement. See the video:



I don't have a good reference to how much movement should be allowed in that part, but I'm pretty sure it should be more. By moving the lock actuator further from the mechanism, I was able to get the lock button to move a little, but not enough to actually allow the door to lock & unlock properly.

Anybody have any idea whether this is normal or not? If not, outside of replacing it, any advice on disassembly/repair of the lock mechanism?

Thanks!

[shogun]

see here under door lock barrel replacement, he disassembled the cpl. system, all parts are shown http://www.evansweb.info/category/bmw-repairs/list/

[davintosh]

Awesome; thanks Shogun! That how-to is exactly what I was looking for. Seems that these parts are pretty hard to come by these days; not cheap at all on eBay, and not many available, so repairing it is the thing.

I figured if anybody would have an answer to this, it'd be you!

http://www.evansweb.info/2003/01/18/...l-replacement/