Trackvw

Hi , the rear keyed door lock on my van got punched in last night , I need to crawl thru the back to open the back door now.....GRRRRRR

So is the rear lock / tumbler the same on the rear door as the front door or the slider door ?

I have no idea if the lock / tumbler is damaged until I take the door panel off , I just need to know if I have to chase down a new lock/tumbler can I just get a front door / side door one .?

Thanks for your help

William Kisselstein

I have no doubt it's the same, what is probably broken however is the plastic housing it mounts to. It's a terrible design, one of mine the door handle on the front hit a mirror on a car parked too close and the handle just broke. Anybody with a crowbar can just break the thing and presto they're inside your van. To the point I've seen special shielded padlock mounts on the doors on a lot of work vans.

Trackvw

Hi.....i guess a warning to anyone with an express van is this , your door handle is all plastic !
the keyed tumbler is pushed into plastic and held in place by a small spring clip and less than 1/8 inch of breakable plastic ....

The bad guy can push in the tumbler with a screw driver and this 1/8 inch of plastic breaks and your tumbler is left hanging ,
Maybe if he is smart or has done this a few times , he can can use a bent screwdriver and push the pull rod and pop the door ,
But mostly he just screws it up for the owner who now has to remove the door panel , and 'should' replace the complete lock mechanism to fix the broken 1/8 plastic bit so the tumbler will stay put.....

Thats where I am now , BUT , I have a plan to keep the tumbler from being pushed back in........

news at 11 I need to get a couple tumblers first.....

And if you have any other ideas please let us know , GM screwed all of us with a cheap bad design ......GRRRRRRR

mountainmanjoe

I'm on my 3rd slider door handle.
the design of the thing is an embarassment

William Kisselstein

My 3500 had the slider and the door handle had broken before I got it and been replaced. Even so sometimes it would not unlatch the door, unless I pressed in on the door to the left of the handle a little bit. There was that much flex in the body and the rods inside to keep it from working.

When 97-02 were more common in the junkyards I saw lots of them with the side doors held shut by a bungee cord or just bolted together somehow. The latch is plastic too. So they break.

More reasons I now drive a 1994.

You can try and rig the tumbler so it won't break (a hose clamp around the outer part of what holds it on might reinforce it) but they'll just break something else if they want in. Just age alone that whole plastic unit turns brittle. The only real fix would be to weld in a piece of metal with hole for an older style lock cylinder and some kind of compatible handle on it.

Triaged

My sliding door handle broke. I ordered a new one from gmpartsdirect.com and the replacement had a cast aluminum housing that is also thicker than the plastic it replaced. Of course the handle itself is still plastic and will likely break in the same place in a few years.

mountainmanjoe

@Triaged
How is your handle holding up? Do you happen to have the part number?

Trackvw

i have really not done anything , I lock the drivers door from the inside , and when i need to unlock it in the morning I open the passenger door and use a broom stick to push up the "unlock" latch.

I have gone to a few big lock shops hoping they had some kind of flush mounted deadbolt lock , but no luck yet
and I did not want to put one of those round masterlock set-up on it......

Thinking that the hot rod guys have a solenoid that locks the door......

but without an outside door lock its hard to break in or open the door.....

So ......still working on it !

Happy New Year

Triaged

It's holding up fine but it hasn't been that long. We'll see in another 5 years. The part that broke didn't change at all.

It's actually cheaper now than when I bought it. It's $41 now and I paid $46. That's a surprise!
https://www.gmpartsdirect.com/oem-pa...tside-23473841

Edit: I think it might have been this one 🤔. I ordered the wrong one first and it was for the front passenger door. https://www.gmpartsdirect.com/oem-pa...tside-84084710
I ordered the first one from rockauto and the second from gmpartsdirect



Express / Savana newer sliding door handle on left with aluminum housing. GM 23473841

William Kisselstein

There does exist for vans a padlock adapter that can be bolted or welded in place. They're more common in larger cities and used generally on the rear doors and side swing out doors. They look to be a universal fit item but I am sure they were developed for these GM vans with the plastic handles.