Door locks not staying locked

[lotusrepair]

91 M100
The door locks operate with the key and go down. You can push the lock down and close the door. Do either of these and count to 3 and they pop back up electrically. The locks will not stay down. Is there an adjustment or sensor out of position I should look at?

Chris

[Brit-Car-Nut]

RTFM

All of the manuals and guides are readily available.

Door Locks.pdf

[epipete]

That's very interesting, it doesn't help me to understand why my doors don't lock when I'm driving but it is a good diagrams for understanding how it all fits together, something I struggled with considerably recently. I not my internal lights are similiarly not working, both related I suspect; time to pull out the wiring manuals methinks!

[Brit-Car-Nut]

Here is the wiring diagram:

Door Lock Wiring.jpg

There are micro switches (C100B6065F) in the door that influence when the doors can be locked. If they are out of adjustment, the doors will lock for a minute or two and then unlock. The Inertia switch wiring also contributes to telling the CDL system to unlock the doors in the event of a crash.

[lotusflasherman]

91 M100
The door locks operate with the key and go down. You can push the lock down and close the door. Do either of these and count to 3 and they pop back up electrically. The locks will not stay down. Is there an adjustment or sensor out of position I should look at?

Chris

Yes... there is a lock sensing switch that sends a signal to the ECM if the car is locked when a door is not closed or is ajar and after a 2 SECOND delay will unlock both doors. (If it was 'minutes' you could be away from the car and not aware it had unlocked itself.) The switch is at the bottom of the door mechanism and if it's come loose or out of position might be sending false signals.

lock mech.JPG

[lotusrepair]

Well I know where I have to look now. It just means opening up the doors again. They should have installed a zipper for the many times the doors are opened up.

Thanks
Chris

[lotusflasherman]

Well I know where I have to look now. It just means opening up the doors again. They should have installed a zipper for the many times the doors are opened up.

Thanks
Chris

Shouldn't take you too long Chris. The more you do something the better you get. You'll be doing it quicker than a Formula 1 tyre change soon..
I've drilled a little hole in the red door clips that secures the button so I can screw in a hook and pull it out without breaking it. Makes them reusable many times over.

photo (9).JPG

button hook.jpg

Saves a lot of time getting the door panel off, and saves having to find where I keep the new clips.

[John_W]

Chris,
My car did this when I first bought it many years ago. It was my first Elan fix. The problem was a disconnected wire in the passenger door lock mechanism. The previous owner had solved it by removing a fuse (which also disabled the interior lights from memory). It could be either door, and you have to remove the door card for access, so I hope you are lucky in finding it first time.
John

[lotusrepair]

I finally got around to the door locks. Nice weather helps. The problem ended up in the right door lock button. It was hanging up and not going fully down.

All fixed.

Chris