Door Cards, Catches and Central Locking

We’re slowing geting to grips with this LandRover, and before the detailing can commence there is a few small bits that needed doing. None of these where un expected but all of which require a few hours attention. The item in question today Central locking problems…….

Our Freelander like plenty of others it seems after a quick google has a central looking issue. All the doors lock via the fob bar the drivers door. I had done a fair bit of research on the internet about what this could be before ripping the door apart to look. After much reading as we first suspected it was solenoid issue.

Sounds complicated but all this does is pull/push the leavers in the lock, and therefore lock or unlock the door. As i said before its a common problem with the majority of people saying it requires a new latch mechanism, others saying just needs lubrication, or a new solenoid wiring into the housing. It turns out in a Freelander the solenoids built into a rather large plastic unit rather than easily accessible so i think we will got for the replacement option, after greasing didn’t seem to be helping.

The one thing that was frustrating me was so many people clearly knew how to perform this fix but no one had pictures of a step by step guide. To often was look at the haynes manual, or the RAVE CD (the downloaded i found was missing large sections, and now works on a rather archaic version of adobe reader and just doesn’t work on newer version). I have ordered a Haynes manual but it hasn’t arrived, being impatient i through caution to the wind and started the work regardless. Here a step by step guide on how to replace the catch/solenoid

STEP ONE

Remove Door card. The screws are all fairly easy to spot bar the screw behind the handle trim, use a trim removal tool to pop this out without damaging it! There is one screw behind the door pull i forgot to photo so don’t miss that

STEP TWO

Stip out the waterproof membrane in our case it was damaged so we completely removed it. We will replace later but it is possible to just un pop this. The door should look like this now.

STEP THREE

Get you hand in! theres no easy way to describe this but you now need to disconnect all the rods and connectors attached to the lock. The power cable just pulls out. There is a rod which goes to the door toggle pull this out towards the door. The rest all pop out with some pulling and tugging. I promise you if i can get this out without damaging anything anyone can. Use the photos bellow to work out where the rods and leavers are.

STEP FOUR

You may be screaming at the screen asking why hasn’t he taken the screws out on the side of the door!?! Leave these in until you at least think you have unhooked everything possible the top link arm to the barrel may require some jiggling with it unscrewed. The reason for not unscrewing it first is not to place an undue stress on to the look barrel as without the screws this is what hold the lock in place, not ideal. you need to un hook the cable from behind the pull handle before the lock is free. This just unhooks from a fish eye behind the latch inside the car.

STEP FIVE

Remove it! With all the rods and cables disconnected now its just a case of pulling it out. This is what it looks like, you can get this top cover off to grease the components as shown in the final picture. For those looking for replacements a Rover 75 door catch would fit the Freelander. We had to pay £55 with delivery from a breaker as the the drivers door latches are hard to come by. LandRover wanted £65 plus vat so we went with a second hand part.