Replacing Door Locks on a 1965 Ford F100


I purchased a matching ignition cylinder plus door locks. There are some differences between the new lock and the old one.

https://www.ecklers.com/ford-pickup-truck-door-and-ignition-lock-cylinder-set-f100-thru-f1100-48-35216-1.html

  • The new lock came with large retaining clips, much larger than the old ones. I chose to re-use the old ones.
  • The new lock has an arm with only a single hole drilled for the lock rod, and neither has a lock rod retaining clip nor the second hold to keep it in place. Seems unlikely the lock rod will simply stay in place. Presumably these are somewhat generic locks that are designed for an application that has a different mechanism for holding the lock rod in place. As a result, I decided to re-use the old lock’s arm and rod retaining clip.
  • The new locks came with rubber weatherstrips. I decided to use even though my old locks didn’t appear to have one.
Top = New, Bottom = Old

Interestingly, reviewing the same part on Dennis Carpenter, their pictures do point out the single hole in the lock arm and indicate that the following clip can be used:

https://www.dennis-carpenter.com/bronco/door/door-lock-and-latch/c3az-6221952-a-door-lock-rod-retainer-clip

Removing existing Door Locks

  1. Remove access panel from door – 8 screws
  2. Remove lock retaining clip – you may be able to do this by hand, otherwise may need some channel locks or pliers to pull rearward.
  3. Remove rod retaining clip by prying up the end and sliding off. The lock rod will hang in the door.
  4. Pull door lock through the outside
After main lock retaining clip removed

Preparing new Door Locks

As mentioned above I decided to re-use the old lock arms in order to use the lock rod retaining clip to hold the rod in place.

  1. Remove clip with a pair of small pliers
  2. Remove washer
  3. Remove lock arm
  4. Repeat similar process on new lock and replace arm with old one.

Installing new locks

  1. Insert the lock from the outside through the hole in the door.
  2. This is the only fiddly bit. You have to hold the lock rod retaining clip just on the end of the lock arm, insert the rod through the end hole then slide the retaining clip up. The retaining clip tab then slips into the second hole in the arm and holds the lock rod in place.
  3. Slide the lock retaining clip on. Since I used the rubber weatherstrip, this was a bit harder than it might have been.

Now its done, check the lock action then replace the access panel.

Summary

I started this process as I wanted to replace an old universal ignition lock with a correct one and have matching door locks. On reflection, I might have just purchased the new ignition lock then taken the old door locks to a locksmith to get rekeyed to match, rather than fully replacing. If you have working door locks, that’s an option.