Power door lock actuators - reply

[John Hertog <crossram@xxxx>]

Dear Tony,

I do not remember ever seeing an e-mail on the listserver about your p/lock
problem... maybe I did miss it? Matters not, really. The problem you are
running into is probably unfamiliar to most 300 owners. Those cars being 2
door hardtops or converts, vacuum locks were not really a much needed
options, as all one had to do to unlock door from inside is reach across .

Strangely enough, I recently had THREE 300F's here, in the same location and
at the same time, all three equipped with vacuum power locks... prior to
that, I had never seen one ! I did restore one of the three, and had to
disassemble / reassemble it all including the power lock mechanism. Talk
about feet and feet of vacuum hoses running through the car ! Egads ! What
spaghetti !

All this to say, I have no idea where to get the actuators rebuilt. I have
never heard of anyone performing such work. I got lucky in that the ones on
the car I was working on were still good and free; had they not been, I
would probably have said "the heck with it" and moved on... or e-mailed
someone like Murray Park (mbpark@xxxx) trying to locate some good
used ones. Other solution would be to look in parts book for that
particular year / model, find the part number(s) for the actuators) you
require, and search on Partsvoice on the Internet.

You never really do state how many are bad, and need to be replaced. Have
they actually been tested, or could the problem be elsewhere ? There are
so many hoses and connections that can spring a leak....

Did U2's and SR71's also have vacuum power locks on the canopies ? Not,
I'll betcha !

John