2002 xc70 Back Passenger Door Lock Stem Gone

[2frufru]

I have been having intermittent issues with my rear passenger lock working. It was annoying but all I gad to do was open the door, push down the lock pin and 'wa-la' door was locked. Until one day I went to do this this trusty trick but to my surprise, when I pushed down the lock pin, the darn thing went down and proceeded to fall all the way into the door panel. WTF?! How the heck and what now?? Any insights into my little conundrum are welcomed.

[turtlehead]

The door lock pin is attached, about four inches down, to the door latch mechanism. Sometimes they pop loose and, as in your case, fall down into the recesses of the door. To fix it, you will need to remove the door panel. It's held in place by a series of locking rivets around the edges, which can be popped loose with a wide screwdriver, and two screws that you can access by carefully prying off the cover to the door handle. IIRC, it is a 25 or 27 torx bit. Once the panel is off you can probably locate the lock pin and, if you are lucky, just reattach it. It is possible that the plastic splines which normally hold it in place have broken, but you may be able to reattach it with epoxy, or possibly use some plastic weld (similar to JB Weld) that is available at Home Depot or Lowe's. If the latch has been giving you trouble, it might just pay you to locate one at the local junkyard and replace it since you have the door panel off anyway. Kill two birds with one stone, as they say.