Tight drivers side lock

Morning! Just got my truck back after 10 months in the body shop. whole front end was repainted and body work performed. They took off all trim, parts etc to do this including door cylinder locks. They reapplied everything of course before i picked it up.

The problem i'm having now is that to unlock the drivers door w key, i insert it like normal. I have to apply excessive force to turn it counter clockwise, at which point it doesn't return to "center" automatically so i can pull the key out. To pull the key out i have to (with excessive force), turn the whole thing back to center (which is getting harder and harder to do each time i try this experiment). This in turns locks the mechanism and i still can't get in/open the door.

1) it feels like i'm going to break the key or lock soon
2) opening the door from inside the drivers seat manually (seems) to work fine
3) If its related, the power locking mechanism on the drivers door doesn't work when activated from the drivers door (which I think was from before I took it in, but really cant remember anymore), but does seem to activate just fine from the passenger side.

Questions:

1) Is this easy enough to fix myself (ie did they just over tighten something with they remounted it)?
2) Is it fair to assume this is due to them accidentally doing something to it, and therefore ask them to fix it?
3) OR is it more likely that this is not related to being removed/installed and maybe just a gremlin manifesting itself.

I don't really want to touch it since its new paint and worried i'll "muck it up", but I also am unable to enter the drivers door at this point....thoughts appreciated - and you bet your boots i'll be posting pics once i finished reassembling the interior!

I think that the stiffness in the lock is probably due to the way the lock linkage was assembled, or disassembled.  I say that because in Big Blue's case the linkage was slightly bent and was rubbing other things, making it hard to lock/unlock.  And, it depended to some extent to whether the window was up or down.

And David/1986F150Six was told that many shops bend the linkage when they take it off, causing things to not work well when reassembled.

So I do think it is something they did in disassembly and/or reassembly.  But, it may well be difficult to get them to own up to it.  However, it is worth a try as it won't cost anything.

If they don't or won't fix it, you should be able to do it yourself.  If the passenger's side is working then the linkage is probably "right", so you could compare.  In my case I had to put the linkage from both sides together to see where the wrong bend was.  But it was pretty obvious.

Having said that, I doubt the door locking problem with the electric locks is related if the switch on the passenger's side works it just fine.  And, if the electric lock can lock or unlock the driver's side then the problem you have with the key must be associated with the key lock linkage and not the electric lock linkage.  Most of the linkage is in common, but there's a bit that isn't, and it seems like that is where your problem is.

Good luck!

If the tightness is in the lock itself, get a little tube of powdered graphite and squirt some in there. Powdered graphite is a good lubricant for locks.

Hi,
I had exactly the same trouble (passenger side). I had to take out the latch assembly to understand that the rod linking the lockset to the larch assy was bent.  Not easy to detect, since this rod has already couple of twists in it.
I don't know if this is similar with powered keylocks.
Hope this can help!

Thanks all, I’m off Thursday and Friday and will tinker with this then! It’s too dark after work these days.