Non opening e46 door

After about a year of having the 330, the drivers door got harder to open, more so in the cold.
As many I tried the trick of loosening the Allen bolt at the side of the lock and then re tightened it. It worked a little, but wasn't ideal. Then one day it totally made no difference and the door failed to open from the outside. It still opened from the inside so when I had a passenger I'd Ask them to open it. When I was on my own however, I had to hold the open button on the key to open the windows and put my arm inside to get to the I side handle.

Well mot time is next week so it's an instant fail if you can't get in the door from the outside.. Time to take action.

There are a couple of options,

Take it to the garage to fix.... £££'s
Get a new lock or one of eBay... Not a bad option, about 50 of the queens finest
Take it out and try to fix it... Cost, lots of stress....

I opted for the latter option.

This isn't a walk through guide but how I fixed my door and a few tips.

First of all, remove the door card, there are many a guide for this, one is :

Then remove the bit of sound deadening from around the door lock side of the door.

Unbolt the top and bottom window runner bolts on the right side. Then using a reverse torx or a deep reach 5.5mm socket,  remove the bolt on the bit that holds the window in.

Next I removed the outside lock and handle.

Then I removed the 3 bolts holding it in place.

Keeping hold of the lock, it will drop down. Unplug the electric plug from it.

The next step involved pushing the window runner away from the lock, a lot of swearing, sweat, blood and grazes and finally manovering out the lock from a tight gap.

Now the fun begins.

Straight away I could see the problem..

The famous bolt goes through the two parts and the it had threaded in the hole so wasn't holding it tight in position. This meant when the lever was pulled it didn't actually move enough to activate the unlock feature.

Couple of options that I could see, put something through the little holes where the spring is

Eg.

This worked but it effected the spring and I didn't have anything I felt comfortable fitting and keeping in place.

The next option was to screw and bolt something in place of the Allen bolt to keep it tight. I tried this and it still slipped and left a non function outcome..

The next option was to put something in the hole to keep the travel firm. Que a kitchen blow torch and solder and a small bolt that just fitted in the gap. 

 

I soldered it in place and then fed a screw that was just wide enough and put a panel behind to secure it. Tested it out and it worked.

I then refitted in the reverse. I'd almost recommend putting the internal handle cable on first as this caused a head ache trying to refit afterwards with the lock in situ.

Then connect the plug back on it. 

Ensure the lever bit is in the right place before bolting it back together. I didn't so had to re adjust which was not ideal... 

 Here is it now...