How do you replace a power lock actuator on the front driver side door on a 2001 Ford Taurus Se?

Answer 1

found this on another website, it may help.

Replacing Power Lock Actuators ---- This post may be of interest to the 'occasional DIYfer' such as me. I have an 03 Odyssey and within a month or so I had two power locks 'go'. One on the front passenger door and one on the driverside sliding door. This of course occurred after the warranty had expired... at first I just decided to just live with it but after a while of constantly walking around the car to lock/unlock the doors manually, I decided to fix them.

I started with the front passenger door... took me the best part of an hour and a half to dismantle it. You first have to take the door panel off... in my case, I didn't use a door panel tool and had no problems... I just used a flat screwdriver and the panel's clips popped off easily without breaking. You need to disconnect and take out the speaker, window switch and power lock switch. You then have to take 1/2 the plastic shield off. Then you'll see your lock actuator right against the door underneath the door lock mechanism and behind the window railing. Rather hard to get to it. You need to remove the window railing and dismantle the lock mechanism from the door itself... you can't just remove the actuator as it is screwed to the lock mechanism and of course the screws are facing the wrong way. The door lock actuator was about 55$ cdn. Reinstalling everything went quicker (about an hour).... have to be careful when reinstalling that you pay attention to how you reconnect the cables... make sure you don't leave them in path of the window railing...

The following day I tackled the sliding door power lock. Much easier job. No switches on door panel... comes right off... didn't use a door panel tool either. The actuator is also screwed to the lock mechanism and you also have to take the full lock mechanism out... however, unlike the front door, you have easy access to the lock mechanism and it's only held in place by 3 screws. The lock actuator is around 65$ cdn with taxes... make sure you specify what Odyssey model you have as the base and higher models have different lock actuators. In terms of how long, I'd say it took me 30 minutes to dismantle everything and 20 minutes to put everything back together... much much easier then front door.

BTW, the folks at the Honda parts counter told me these actuators have a tendency to break easily... Now I'm just hoping my other door actuators won't break... especially the front door.