LexusRox

I installed the L. front door piggy back actuator for deus85 yesterday. He lives close to me so it worked out and was a learning experience for both of us. Thanks to lmnop for putting us in the right direction. I used the rod that comes with the actuator kit and just flattened the end after I had cut it to proper length. I then drilled a 9/64 hole in the end (the size of the shaft that lmnop formed the small cylinder for). I drilled a 5/32 hole through the 2 walls of the plastic handle housing and used a very small flat file to put a slot for the flattened end of the rod through without enlarging the holes for the rod. Took a couple of minor bends to line the rod up with the male protrusion on the end of the factory lock cable. If I had the correct push-on keeper to keep the rod on that male protrusion I would not have had to be so careful about the size of the hole the rod went through. As it was I had to use the hole and mounting of the actuator to keep the pressure up on the rod enough to keep it on the protrusion. I was able to use just the single mount strip that comes with the kit to mount the actuator in the correct place. I twisted a wire pair (use aircraft safety wire pliers) and went forward and connected to the wires in the factory loom on the inside of the door high and maybe a foot back from the front of the door. It's very easy to tap in there and since it's totally dry there (I use 3M 90 degree taps) it worked out well. Didn't have to disassemble any thing in the door. This is the simplest of all lock piggy-back repairs. I wish I had thought of it when I did my DIL's- would have saved me a lot of work. Maybe deus85 will post pictures- he took quite a few and you should be able to see exactly what we did on the back side. Thanks again lmnop for an excellent contribution to this forum that I think will aid a lot of people. Roger

Here are the pics.

The first pic shows the close-up of the attachment site of the rod to the lock lever.

The second pic shows the overview of the front side of the lock lever and where the rod was placed.

The third pic shows where the actuator was placed relative to the lock lever.

Finally, the last pic shows the taps that were placed onto the two wires.

Roger did an amazing job!

Hi. This forum is awesome!!! I had this issue with my driver's side door. I want to thank everyone here for their very detailed instructions, pics and time. I definitely would have not figured this out or would even consider tackling this on my own. An independent Lexus shop here wanted $500 to fix this. But with the allelectronics.com actuator, it only cost me a total of $12.50, that included shipping, which by the way, only took 2 days to receive this. It took me awhile to install this, about 4 hours, but I was able to get it fixed.

The hardest part for me was to flatten out the end of the rod, drill and then bend in a way to attach, yet still be able to slide in the 2 holes that I had to drill though the plastic handle housing. I was having trouble keeping the flattened,drilled end of my rod onto the door lock switch. It kept pulling out. I guess I didn't have the right angle or pressure. First, I tried using hot glue on the end, but it didn't hold. Finally, I ended up using a *cable tie* around my rod and the existing cable attached to the lock switch. That seemed to hold the rod pretty tight without any movement out.

Anyway, I just wanted to give a great big thanks to all, especially to Indiana, lmnop, Code58 and deus85!!!