93 Freezing of door latches

In the Boston area recently, on one of the first cold days after a freeze, I couldn't open either the driver's or passenger's door. This is not a frozen lock problem.

Back a step here. From some point in the summer at least the driver's door held water inside so that when I opened it, my shoes got soaked by rainwater. Could there be a plugged drain somewhere and if so where is it and how do I clear it.

Now back to the current problem. Turning the key in the lock would produce a dull un-locking sound - not the usual sharp unlocking clunk. At one point by working at it, I got the door open but when I pushed it closed it bounced back on me. The latch was not catching.

This seemed to be affecting the passenger door but I think this is somehow linked to the mechanism in the drivers door because when I was able to look across to the drivers door I could see that the lock was not fully locked or unlocked.

When I eventually got into the passenger door I worked the drivers lock manually and it was sort of loosely hung up between locked and unlocked. Even when I held the lever to the unlock position by hand I couldn't push the drivers door open from inside.

I had already used a hairdryer around the molding on the outside thinking that was the problem, so after I made the observations above I continued using the heat down through the open window. Eventually the door started working but I think it was just a coincidence because later on and also days later it started happening again.

I put a little lithium grease on the latch but only a very little because I didn't want to spread it around and eventually get it on my clothes. Maybe I need to use more? Something tells me that I'm going to have to get inside of the door to lubricate something there.

Any ideas appreciated. If I'm going to have to take the inside panel of the door apart or enough to reach in, how would I do it. Also where are any drains that might be in the bottom of the door.

Please help because right now the car is not drivable as I can't always get into it even if I leave it unlocked.

Thanks,

Marc

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Marc
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