The wife's 1991 truck looks like a new truck.

New door hinge-pins.

New belt weather-strips.

Pristine door seals.

Vent-shields above the glass.

All that being considered, after two days of monsoon rain and an immediate plunge into the single digits, the truck has some frozen issues that I would like to cure and prevent happening in the future.

Once I got the key-locks thawed, got the key inside and turning both ways, the actual lock mechanism itself, on the driver's door, was frozen solid and immovable.

When I climbed in from the passenger side, I could not even lift the little button-thingie.

The electric button did nothing either.

After half-an-hour of high-idle, with the heat on full-blast, it finally thawed itself loose, only to refreeze again that night.


I haven't yet had opportunity to remove the panel and see what caused this and how I can fix it.

It makes no sense, as I sort of thought that any water that got in there would drain down inside the door and leave the lock mechanism high and dry.


Has anyone else had this issue and what have you done to prevent it ??


Thanks.

 

Along with the driver-door being frozen, the hood-latch cable was also frozen and immovable; I am assuming from years of minute amounts of water finding it's way inside the cable housing.

Like the door mechanism, a half-hour of the engine running thawed it loose.


It looks like quite the project to completely remove this cable, in order to be hung straight up-and-down, and then re-install it.


I am open to ideas as to how I can somehow force oil completely through this cable to purge whatever moisture is inside WITH the cable still mounted on the truck.

Thanks.

 

Thaw it out. Clean it out REALLY well. Lube it real well with a silicone based lubricant.

 

I wonder if you could use some sort of putty to seal the red plastic WD-40 straw to the end of the cable-housing, alongside the cable-wire, and pump some WD-40 through until it comes out the other end.

Alternately, I've had luck with spraying lubricant into the cable housing, a bit at a time, then blowing it in further with compressed air.

Hope either of these make sense. It's easier to show someone than to explain with words.

 

I had my hood cable nearly seized, but after a few days of applying special lube for appliance motors, can't remember the name but it has the Zoom Spout straw, it began to work like new, just add from under the hood. It will eventually reach the entire cable. The compressed air is a good idea though would save some time.
For the locking mechanism, you can access that from an access panel on the door side, it looks like a vent. Maybe you could blow it out with compressed air and lube really good to displace any remaining water.
My truck is not water tight either, my leaks are from the air vents in the foot wells.
My fix is to make a water diverter out of sheet metal and attach with silicone over top of the air inlets. Might work for the doors too.
If all else fails, cover with a tarp

 

I pay real close attention to anything you have to say about cold weather; I wonder why ??


Is this access panel you speak of located on the edge of the door ??

I think I know what/where it is; and, when it's daylight and less cold, I will have a closer look.

I am for sure gonna give that a try.

I have plumber's putty, epoxy putty, Silly Putty, Magic Putty, and Play-Doh; plus, I ain't never threw away one of those red straws in my life, so I have plenty of guinea-pigs to experiment with.

I may even try to put a vacuum on one end while the lubricant is spraying in the other end.


Once I do get it dried out and lubricated, I am going to always keep a glob of Vaseline over the end that is under the hood; Vaseline is the best water-proofer that I have ever used.

 

I have an idea or two every once in a while.......


That little vent/louver will give you access to the lock cylinder. Sounds like you are having problems with the actual latch mechanism. You'll have to pull it out of the door. Once it's out I soak mine in a can of diesel fuel for a while and then scrub it with a paintbrush and or what ever else fits into the little places to get 20 years of dust/dirt/hair/road grime out of the latch. Once the latch is as clean as I can get it, I hose the thing down with some breakclean. After that I re-lube the hole thing with a sprayable silicone spray. I don't skimp on the stuff either.


YOu can also use the silicone spray on a rag to wipe a coat on the door seals to keep them from freezing to the door frame.....

 

Get inside the door and slather white lithium grease all over the lock. It stays pretty soft even in cold and will keep water out forever. You might hit it with a hair dryer first to get any traped moisture out and encourage the grease to melt into it.

 

Silicone based Lubes wont attract dirt and gum up the works like the petroleum based lubes will.

 

Yes; that would be my situation.

As soon as the weather gives me opportunity, I will remove and clean/lube both sides as per instructions.


That would have to be a cleaner option to the PAM and Vaseline that I have been using.

The PAM works, but is soon gone, plus is a dust magnet.

The Vaseline works better than anything else known to mankind, but creates a terrible mess and takes half the summer to finally get it all cleaned away.

 

+1 I do this every year to both vehicles, on all door seals, locks, everything. It does a great job from letting water freeze and stick to seals or parts.

 

My latch mechanism was giving me the fits. Turned out to be the plastic shrouding molded around it had torn off and was wedge up inside where I couldn't see it. Looking at it, I didn't even know anything was wrong.

 

I just got done looking through my arsenal of aerosol can-fulls of various poisons and carcinogens.

I have Liquid Wrench Silicone Lubricant and 3M "DRY" Silicone Spray.

I selected the Liquid Wrench can, grabbed me a rag, and proceeded to wipe down the rubber seals on all the doors of our trucks; it sure made them shiny.

Tearing into the lock mechanism is gonna have to wait for better times.

It is putting down the snow as I type this and is supposed to change over to typical Kentucky freezing rain by mid-night.

I will know tomorrow if I did a good job or not.

 

How about a graphite style of lube to put in there ? They also make a lock de-icer, but I never had to use it....so I dont know how good it is.

 

I poked the straw of some magic kind of Teflon spray water-displacing wonder-lube stuff that was sitting un-guarded at the shop into each key-hole and squirted them liberally.

Since it is freezing-rain tonight, I placed a blob of Vaseline over each key-hole on everything around here, truck doors, tool boxes, topper, house doors, whatever.

Years of use has taught me that nothing else known to mankind repels water longer and under more conditions than plain old Vaseline.