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2002 Explorer door ajar problem


lil_Blue_Ford

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I ran into this problem once before, mom started complaining that her explorer would randomly start dinging that a door was ajar and clicking the locks. Before I could put much effort into chasing the problem, wires started burning. Since the smoke had been let out of a couple wires, it was easy to find where the fault was - a couple wires for the drivers side door had broken inside the rubber piece between the door and A pillar. That was a year or two ago.

Now, it has started acting up again. Randomly going down the road it will start dinging that a door is ajar and it starts playing with the locks. Some days it does it once or twice and that's it, some days it's pretty much non-stop. The assumption was that the wires in the passenger side door were the culprit so yesterday I pulled the boot back and.... the wires look like brand new. I checked the back two doors and the hatch by pulling back the boots and looking and they all looked good. I didn't pull the boot on the drivers side door but I wiggled the thing a good bit and nothing happened. I know that when I fixed it I soldered the wires back together and used heat shrink tubing on them. The ones that were not separated got a coating of liquid electrical tape and wrapped with quality electrical tape so I find it hard to believe that they gave out.

So I'm not sure where to start on trying to figure out wtf is going on. If I had some way to localize the problem to a particular part of the truck, that would be a help. Because it seems to be a random problem, short of pulling all the interior trim and tracing every wire, I'm not sure how to find it. So I'm looking for ideas....

2002 Explorer xls, 4-door, 4x4, automatic, 4.0L sohc.
 


ab_slack

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The door lock locking/unlocking I am guessing is related to the auto door lock feature when driving (always hated that) responding to it thinking the door is being opened/closed.

So that makes the problem related to door closed switch itself (maybe the mechanical part of it) or, as you have already been thinking related to a broken wire in the harness. There have been references to spraying latches with WD40 to help with mechanical/switch (see further down comment on that)

Broken wires in the harness are apparently a problem in these explorers. It is possible for a wire to break internal without breaking the insulation causing an open so a visual inspection might not find it.

I currently have a problem with the interior light not going out (like the door is open), the electric door locks not reliably working, and it acting like the door is open when key is still in the ignition and car is off, but I don't get a door open indicator on the dash.

I have the auto door lock feature disabled so it doesn't do anything funny that way so it has been tolerable.

I have found other threads pointing to the wiring harness in the door. Particularly the large wire (the ground) with if I recall correctly it is black. Also primarily in the drivers side door which makes sense because that usually sees more use. In my case I did a cursory and didn't find anything. Recently something odd happened with the passenger side door so I am thinking that side.

Googling "2002 explorer dome light stays on" or "2002 explorer door ajar" will get some relevant stuff.

Things I have looked at in the past:

Here is one referring to dealing with the harness
http://www.carcomplaints.com/Ford/Explorer/2002/accessories-interior/door_ajar_light_interior_dome_light_does_not_shut_off.shtml

I have also found references to the WD40 trick spraying the latches which I think relates to dealing with the switch itself. Not an explorer, but I think this is the same trick.
http://www.f150online.com/forums/electrical-systems/193352-if-your-door-ajar-dome-light-staying-read-9.html
 

lil_Blue_Ford

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So I ended up playing with this some more today. I had a bright idea yesterday when I took my dog for a walk while I enjoyed a fine cigar and my coffee (always good for the thought processes, lol). If you opened up the door, pulled the plug off the door ajar switch and stuck a jumper cable in there, it would make the truck think the door was closed. If you do that with one door at a time, you could find the one with the bad switch relatively easily.

This morning I did a little searching and found a thread on an Explorer forum about door ajar switches. Several people remarked about the WD-40 trick and some voiced concerns about it. I went out and sprayed down each lock mechanism with electrical contact cleaner then worked the door a bit. The hatch yielded me a substantial amount of gunk that came out. Took the Explorer for a spin around the block and all was quiet. Not sure if the problem is fixed or not yet, we'll see.

Then I noticed that the rear drivers side window will go down ok (a little slow but not bad) but going up it tends to run out of go at some point on the way up. Doesn't matter what switch you use. So I spent an hour or two pouring over wiring diagrams and testing some of the stuff. Near as I can tell, the switches and wires are ok, unless the master switch has a fault in ONLY that circuit. So I'm suspecting the motor is on the way out.
 

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