Crispy insulation on all the wires on the lock switch in the driver door; put electrical tape and liquid "tape" on the wires. I believe I got them all separated, and I didn't see any broken wires.

(doors were randomly locking/unlocking when the door moved and the bares wires touched)

Now it only makes the relay click, unless I whack the black wires together (took them all out of that crappy plastic connector). The two colored wire plugs are plugged together, then I hit the black wires together, and it will unlock the doors. I hold the switch-button down and whack the black wires together, but the relay only clicks.

I've been playing with this durn thing for a couple hours, and I know I'm missing some basic understanding of electricity. All I "get" is the circle/circuit thing. I don't get how "ground" works...

Am I making any sense? Would the actual switch itself go bad, or did I miss a broken or bare wire?

But wait, there's more! :+) Went back out there, hooked all three plugs up, pushed the lock-button down, and the other door-buttons jerked downward just a little bit. Kept doing it, and they gradually quit moving, until the relay was just clicking, again. (I had noticed this sort of decline before, and it's not the battery or anything) Some kind of charge builds back up after awhile???

Look at the physical position of the doorlock - the orientation of the key.
If you get the lock cylinder stuck in lock or unlock, then move the lock stem, it will do the same thing. It will only click, or altogether stop responding.

When I lock or unlock my car doors, I make sure that when I unlock the car, the key is perpendicular to the ground. When it's in the right spot, the locks twitch a little.
I too re-wrapped the doorlock wiring with electrical tape. I also found it helpful to put some superglue on the exposed wiring I couldn't reach with tape just where the wires enter the plastic part that holds the contact for the lock/unlock sensor/switch.

Before I did all this, closing the door would move the wires around. I had fun a few times unlocking the car about 20 times and having it lock itself again and vice a versa.

Hope this helps,
Will

PS A bent key or a new key that isn't cut juuust right makes this a lot more likely.

I was dealing with this same problem this afternoon on a '91 240 wagon. I have the passenger door lock and tailgate lock unresponsive, and a 250mA battery drain. I was figuring the drain and lock problems are connected. I took out the lock cylinder and plunger switches after inspecting the wiring as far as possible while the parts were installed in the door. I saw no sign of insulation wear while installed. I took apart the lock cylinder collar switch to clean the contacts and noticed that the fine multistrand wires are a bit fluffed up where they attach to the silver contact rings. Some of the strands from one wire can and do touch strands from the adjoining wires.

This is all where the three wires enter the plastic housing, which Will said he super glued. His must not have been as fuzzy as mine because that would not help in my case. I undid tabs on the silver strips and managed to pull them out. Then I ed errant strands of wire together and soldered them a bit. Not so much that the entire exposed part was tinned, just the end touching the silver. The wires seem to be spot welded to the silver strips at the factory.

After putting the switch back together with cleaned contacts and "more solid" wire joints, and reinstalling, I found much crisper action for the door locks and even heard the tailgate lock activate. However, the news was not all good. It is working intermittently. If I wiggle the wires where they enter the plastic housing of the lock cylinder switch the locks sometimes work, and sometimes don't. That switch is still having internal shorting problems, just not quite as bad as before.

It is about a $100 part where I've seen it listed online. Darn.

Will, I think you have the answer here. It fits the symptoms. If a lock switch was stuck in one or the other position (other than "neutral"), using the other one would cause the second relay to click. But the result would be to just relieve the voltage across the actuators, not reverse the direction, so only the weak click would be heard. Worth a thumb to maybe bring the OP back to the thread.
--
Art Benstein near Baltimore

Marathon runners with bad footwear suffer the agony of defeat.

Hopefully! Maybe a second "new" post will catch the OP's eye.

By the by... have you ever heard of Sheldon Brown? Between your car knowledge and punny signatures, you two have a lot of parallels.

Cheers

Will, I know enough to appreciate that as a grossly undeserved compliment. Thank you.
--
Art "Bad Pun Collector" Benstein near Baltimore

Life is like a roll of toilet paper.
The closer you get to the end the faster it goes.

I just went through the same aggravation.I repaired and replaced 3 different central locking "rings".As soon as I plug the thing in inside the door,the locks would lock but not unlock.Drove me nuts.Finally I unplug the wireing inside the car,mine is a 92 240GL,pulled the harness out a little from the door jamb,rubber boot and fiddle with wires a bit.And the locks worked.The wires in the door were not cut or frayed.But I suspect where they 'bend'it caused an internal disconnect.I wrapped the wires with tape to make them strong put it back together,made sure the plug under the dash was not corroded and everything is now working the way it should.I would trace the harness from under the dash ,through the door and out to the plug.I was lazy,otherwise I would have cut the end plus off and run 3 new wires.More work but a better repair.

I had a failure in the Drivers Door Stalk. Is that the Round piece you are talking about?

I had to replace the stalk.
It sounds like one of the Black wires is not making a connection.
The harness under the bolster (by the Hood Release) is only three wires; a black, green and red. Maybe do a continuity check from that single black wire up to the black wires at the Lock. Maybe there is a break in there someplace. If not, I would lean to the Stalk being teh problem.

I think they separated the Black inside the door .. Key lock and Stalk. Never really went through the schematic.
I'm pretty sure I would not jump the two black wires together permanently.



--
'75 Jeep CJ5 345Hp ChevyPwrd, two motorcycles, '85 Pickup: The '89 Volvo is the newest vehicle I own. it wasn't Volvos safety , it was Longevity that sold me http://home.lyse.net/brox/TonyPage4.html http://cleanflametrap.com/tony/

Hi there,

My daughter experienced the same weak locking a few months back. No problems with the door switches this time, and fuse 8 was clean. But it took two, or maybe three pulls on the button (or key) to get the lock all the way up.

Looking closely, the rear left door was the most sluggish. Because I'd seen water leak into these sealed door lock actuators before, I opened that one up first. Sure enough, once I disconnected the rear left motor (blue plug at the base of the B pillar) the other locks responded crisply once again.

Inside the lock actuator was a rusty motor. The "recharge" you feel is, I believe, a function of the PTC thermistor (overload protector) in each door lock. As the current increases from a stalled motor, it warms up, limiting the current increase, and allowing a bit more voltage to appear at the remaining locks. Of course, if one isn't more sluggish than the rest, you may have more than one to fix. The blue plugs at O and R in the wiring diagram make good places to isolate the culprit.












--
Art Benstein near Baltimore

If electricity comes from electrons, does that mean that morality comes from morons?

wow, thanks, those are going in my ever-swelling file of Volvo info.

Played with it some more, and there's nothing wrong with the relay or the lock motors. If I jump wires between those three plugs on the car-side of the connector, the doors lock and unlock perfectly.

So I guess either the little round switch is bad, or I did miss a bare or broken wire? If I can figure out how to run a little current through the switch/wires and hook up a tester, what kind of numbers would I be looking for?

Sometimes when I hook it all up, there's a little bit of juice getting to the locks -- enough to make the relay click when I push the driver-door button down or up. Oh boy, I've tried too many different things too many different ways to remember exactly. Shoulda written everything down.

... and can that little round black switch be taken apart without breaking it? I can't see a way...

It has been a while since I've looked closely at the switches, but I do remember thinking I was lucky to get the wires repaired outside of them, because the guts were sealed away in potting compound. At least the knob switch was, if I recall.

Maybe the problem of weak operation is happening because there's a short holding the lock relay open while you are trying to operate the unlock relay. Or, perhaps the ground wire is broken in the door jamb.

Try to isolate the two switches from each other and see which one exhibits what behavior.
--
Art Benstein near Baltimore

Without geometry, life is pointless.

Never mind. Found a workaround for the 4-link limit.