Im in a bit of a predicament on my 05 RL with the front passenger door being stuck in the locked position and me not being able to unlock it regardless of what I have tried.

The origin of this problem is when I noticed that my door lock not always unlocking with the keyless entry and so I decided to follow the F-004 guide (which I had successfully executed on the drivers side about 6 months ago).
I believe I messed up when aligning the components that control the door lock (see pic for reference).



I don't know if it was lack of patience or abundance of confidence but my first error was not testing for functionality before re-installing the actuator.
My grave error was closing the door with the untested actuator (I did not re-install the door panel).

Of course the door was in the locked position and now the door remains locked from the inside and out. Since I believe that the component that controls the locking and unlocking is misaligned, the cables running to the actuator have not been able to unlock the door regardless of how hard I push or pull on them and the motor has been able to do even less (although I do feel it operating).

Any ideas? The dealership is closed today otherwise I would have taken it directly there.

 

I Am in the same predicament, so far I found out that it is impossible to open the door without breaking the actuator just so I can open the door. Currently i bought a passenger side door trim and I tore up the trim inside the car just to get a look inside. I went to Acura and they were going to cut open the door on the outside to unlatch it and then put it back together then repaint the door. Their estimated total cost was about 2.5k for everything, figured I would do it myself.

 

Alright everyone! After 2 weekends of fiddling with this, I finally managed to get the door open and fixed my problem.

Let me begin by illustrating how these actuators work:
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These actuators lock the door using a clutch style system where it can engage or disengage a bracket that makes contact with the actual latch.
The yellow circle is what controls the locking mechanism. You can see it here in the locked position. When the motor or the cable unlocks it, it shifts the plastic to the right and it is able to engage the latch (red diamond).
(The driver's side door has an additional provision that allows you to manually unlock the door using a key)

The green circle is what is engaged by the outer or inner door handle and moves the metal bracket up regardless if the door is locked or unlocked. If it is locked, nothing happens; If it is unlocked it will engage the latch and open the door.

Here's the other side of the actuator so you can see how everything connects.

(If assembling your actuator, make sure the yellow circles are connected to each other, the part circled in green on pic 2 is UNDER the part circled in green in part 1 and most importantly, that the bracket and locking mechanism circled in red are engaged)

Now my problem: The ever so important connection of plastic to metal circled in red in the first picture was completely disconnected (hanging freely to the left) which resulted an inability to ever engage the latch.
Solution: Since the lock uses a clutch style locking system, all I had to do was get something to lift on the part of the latch with the red diamond and that would open the door.

Since the door was shut, I was going to have to drill holes and do this from the inside. Heres what I used:

• Replacement Actuator
• Cordless Drill
• 1" Bimetal Hole Saw
• 1/4" Drill Bit
• A large hook
• Light

The blue box is where I drilled my hole with the hole saw:
(The purple box was made before I knew exactly how the actuator worked when I was under the impression that was door was just "locked")


After making the big hole in the blue box, I used the 1/4" drill bit to eat away at the plastic to allow for visibility and space for my hook.

Here is where the holes leave you in terms of the actuator:


Once the holes were made I then used my hook to reach in and open the latch by pushing up on the part of the latch sticking out (red diamond) and the door opened easily.

The moral of the story is if you are messing with your actuators, test them to make sure everything is attached properly BEFORE you install it on the car.