I purchased a 240z that had the knob rod and key cylinders deleted. I thought I could put in an actuator to trigger the “lock”, but I think I’m missing something or maybe the key cylinders is a required part of the lock working?

To be clear, there’s no vertical knob rod ie no #11, #2 per the diagram. When I reach inside the door to wiggle what I think the knob rod is connected to, it just moves up and down a little bit and as far as I can tell, there’s no way to lock the door that way either.

Any help would be appreciated! Please let me know if I can provide more information.

Thank you!

I remember the lock mechanism on my 76 being almost impossible to move even with the knob and cylinder attached correctly. It might be that you just need to get a better grip on the part that the knob rod attaches to and pull harder. Might be worthwhile to fabricate a new rod and attach it to give you something to pull and push on. With lubrication and some manual working the mechanism on mine eventually loosened up. The car had sat for many years before I got it.

32 minutes ago, Zed Head said:

I remember the lock mechanism on my 76 being almost impossible to move even with the knob and cylinder attached correctly. It might be that you just need to get a better grip on the part that the knob rod attaches to and pull harder. Might be worthwhile to fabricate a new rod and attach it to give you something to pull and push on. With lubrication and some manual working the mechanism on mine eventually loosened up. The car had sat for many years before I got it.

This is super helpful. I’ll give that a shot! Thank you! It is currently unlocked so I would guess I could fab something and press down hard.

The doors will not lock unless the door latch is latched. In other words they won't lock unless the door is shut or you manually rotate the door latch to the locked position

38 minutes ago, Patcon said:

The doors will not lock unless the door latch is latched. In other words they won't lock unless the door is shut or you manually rotate the door latch to the locked position

This is also super helpful. I will report back when I get some time to lock/force that lever. Thank you!

I had forgotten about that. Reminded me that you have to lock the door with the key from the outside after you close it, if you want to lock it and leave it. Of course, based on the above. The knob is only for locking yourself in.

I used the knob to work the mechanism free becuase I was afraid that I would break the key.

I rotated the latch so it’s facing directly south.

I tried with all my might to lock downwards, but it would just not move.

I haven’t yet fabbed something but I did also try a wrench to push down and it would just not budge. I wonder what I’m missing here.

Video for reference:

Have you removed the entire mechanism and performed a deep clean along with lubricants?

6 minutes ago, Yarb said:

Have you removed the entire mechanism and performed a deep clean along with lubricants?

I haven’t done that yet. I was going to try what I could before going down that rabbit hole. Looks like I may have to?

Take lots of pics for reference.

So before I go and dismantle the window/door etc, I have a question about how this is supposed to work.

As it sits now, the door latches and opens fine.

You can see the red arrow pointing at the mounting screw. This looks like it prevents the knob rod (green) and the keyhole tab (yellow) from moving downward.

• Is this expected?

• If the knob rod (green) was working as intended, would the blue part move as well?

• With the green/yellow parts in that position, are they in a door locked or door unlocked position? May be an obvious answer, but I thought I would ask to be 100% sure.

I’m wondering if the previous owner did something crazy like weld it to keep it “unlocked” forever.

Thanks in advance!

sigh, i think i know what’s going on.

the previous owner put a rivet on the lever here so it wouldn’t move.

when it should look like this instead:

Edited Friday at 02:00 PM3 days by brobromelon