Door lock problems

[cellogirl]

When I bought my 1994 B-van last year, the door locks were a little weird. The central locking system worked fine, but the mechanical locks on the side door and back door didn't work very well. The driver's side door is also a little sticky. This summer I was out at the river and had both rear doors open to unload something. When I came back later to load it back in, the driver's side rear door wouldn't open. I took it to a locksmith and he said that it was probably the solenoid in the lock. I am going to try to take off the door panel and replace it. I have a feeling the side door is going to have a similar problem soon!
Two sets of questions for you all:
1. does anyone have any tips on getting the back door panel off when it is closed? Is there a diagram or some help available for taking door panels off that would be useful for those of us with poor mechanical skills?
2. is there anything that can be done to "fix up" the system and get it running properly on all doors?
Thanks in advance for the help.

[Planck]

The outside door handles on these doors are connected to cables that go to the latch. The cable housing ends that hook to the handle and latch are plastic and often fail probably due to age and heat. There is an outfit that makes metal replacements that solve this problem, but you need to get to the inside of the door to fix them. This may be your problem, or it may be the solenoids, which often can fail, but should not prevent you from being able to unlock the doors manually. If the door lock knob is fully up and you cannot open the door I would suspect the cable. Very hard to remove the panel without the door open. I would take it to a local auto body shop, even at a Ford dealer body shop to see if they have any tricks to get the doors open. You could also try unlocking the door/s with the key.

Here is the Ebay ad for the repair part:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Door-Handle-Cab ... fa&vxp=mtr

Good luck.

[cellogirl]

Thanks Planck for the great advice. It sounds like I may need to take it to the Ford dealer. The driver's side back door doesn't have a keyhole or a up/down lock indicator. It is supposed to lock and unlock when the passenger side of the back door is locked/unlocked. When I use the key on the back door, the one side (with the keyhole) opens, but it doesn't unlock the other side.
Your advice about the metal replacements is really useful and I will probably do that on the side door, which is the one that seems to have the the key-to-latch problem.

[Planck]

Oops - sorry, I was referring to the rear door with the outside handle and lock. The other door cannot be locked. It can only be opened when the passenger side door is open. There is a handle on the inside edge of the drivers side door to unlatch it. It is black and at the same height as the outside handle on the other door. If that does not work, I would suspect the cable has failed. That handle is secured by what looks like two pop rivets at top and bottom. Those will probably have to be drilled out to get access to the cable to open that door. If that is the problem, it will be cheaper to buy the aluminum cable ends, as I believe the dealer can only provide the complete latch-cable-handle assembly which is pretty pricey.