Hi, I just got small motors and I am getting ready to replace it in actuator in driver door, I am planning to follow instructions from this link: http://www.clublexus.com/forums/showthread.php?t=289839
How much difference is RX300 from GS mention in above instructions? Any tips for RX300?
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Pardon my descriptions of things, my DYI are always an adventure, but I've done okay over the years.
No need to remove window, but the job is time consuming and a pain in the !Removed!. My job was half !Removed! but only spent $2 for the motor rather than $240, so I feel pretty good.
Getting that actuator plastic casing apart is near impossible. I can see the old motor in there and so I dremeled all around the plastic to get to it--very carefully not to cut into the gears and connectors.
I couldn't get the small collar (coupler?) off the new motor, and the old motor's twisty end that fits inside the small pointy gear wouldn't come off either. I just put some super glue inside the long pointy gear and put the end of the new motor in. The new motor fits snug but perfect I believe. I tested the lock and the new motor fired up. After 10-12 times, it stopped turning the gear, just spinning going no where. I took it off, cleaned glue off and put more glue in there and let it dry for 30 minutes rather than 2 minutes. It turned the gears with no probs on and off for 10 minutes.
I have half the actuator exposed and pieces of old plastic not really practical to put back on. But everything was fairly intact, but when the motor is turning it wants to pop up a bit. I duck taped it and wrapped rubber bands all around the motor and it stays put. Half !Removed! like I said, but it worked!!
Getting the cable back on was a pain and fitting the actuator back in the same position caused my keyless entry not to work for the day. I had to go back in the door and play around some more with it and now it's all good. I hope the glue holds up so it will keep working. Time will tell.
Good luck!!
Out of curiosity, why didn't you retrofit a new $10 actuator as described in the posts instead of trying to install a new motor on the existing actuator?
That retrofit sounded hairy and the motor replacement looked easy, but it wasn't. I got the 5 motors off ebay for $10, and now have extras incase some more locks (motors) go bad.