Replaced the burnt out electric door latch release on my van. How does a motor come to be burnt out, you ask?
The previous owner replaced the rear barn doors with a hatchback. As the factory didn’t install captive threads for the hatch hinges, the chance of someone who is fitting the door in their back garden getting the alignment even vaguely correct were, well, nil.
They also punted on doing the electrics correctly, and just installed a big button on the dashboard hardwired to the release motor, bypassing the central locking computer.
The joy here is that as the door isn’t exactly free to move, when you press the button it doesn’t pop open or whatever it’s meant to do, so if there’s only one of you it’s incredibly tempting to wedge the button down with something heavy while you go and fiddle with the door.
If you do that, eventually the hobby motor in the latch that’s stalled out has enough and fails short, taking the well-hidden fuse (at least there was a fuse!) with it and making reverse engineering the whole mess even harder.
So as well as replacing the motor, I’ve also relocated the button to somewhere you can jiggle the hatch while pushing it, and filed down the latch bracket so there’s not so much pressure on it and it has a chance of releasing first time.
