855 station wagon - Lock motor tank cap deactivation?

[franz47]

855 station wagon - I thought my problem with the locked tank cap was solved by
opening in once manually. Now again it was locked when I wanted to tank. So that
means it works when locking but does not work when opening the central lock. So
I want to deactivate the whole mechanism. I think I have to remove the right
rear panelling inside the car to get access to the motor to remove the cables
from it? Or can I do it from somewhere else?
Regards
Viktor

 

[Atif]

On my '96 850 wagon I thought I had this same problem. When I unlocked
the car with the key fob, the gas take door was still locked and I had
to pop a back panel off to manually unlock it.

HOWEVER (and maybe you have the same problem?) the issue was that at
some point someone tried to open the panel while the lock was done and
this BENT the metal part on the panel that the lock pin goes through.

Because of this, when the panel was close and the doors locked, the pin
would enter the hole in this metal part, but rub up against it. Then
when I UNLOCKED the doors, the pin had to much friction/resistance since
it was rubbing up against this piece and the pin would not fully
disengage/retract.

So before you go through all of the effort of deactivating the lock,
look at the gas tank panel/door and the metal part that has the hole the
pin goes into. If it looks like it has been pulled AWAY from the
door/panel, just bend it back in and then try....

This worked for me! Good luck!

 

[franz47]

So before you go through all of the effort of deactivating the lock,
look at the gas tank panel/door and the metal part that has the hole the
pin goes into. If it looks like it has been pulled AWAY from the
door/panel, just bend it back in and then try....

This worked for me! Good luck!

Thanks for your input! I just had a look again during daylight at about -3
degrees centigrade. When I tried to open the tank door, I felt, that there was
some clearance, so the lock stud was not rubbing against the door ring. After
manually opening the lock from behind the rear light cover, I opened the tank
door and operated the central lock several times while watching what happened
with the locking mechanism. The stud moved back and forth, though sluggishly but
did not seem to be bent. It did not enter the hole on the other side. I then
sprayed some lubricant, it still moved several times back and forth without
seemingly being bent. But then after several locking/unlocking cycles it ceased
to move completely. So what I have done as a temporary solution is that I have
opened it manually, knotted a piece of gift wrapping flat band to the opening
ring and threaded the other end through the gap between the rear light covering
lid and rest of the inner panel. So at least I hope to be able to open it, if
necessary, without having to remove the panels. I will later see how to remove
the panelling over the lock to detach the cables completely. Next thing to do is
to fill the tank as soon as possible.
Regards
Viktor