Barracuda 1971 and 1970 door latch/lock differences

New member here with my first post. The 1971 Barracuda "Keyless Door Locking System" was listed as standard on the 1971 Barracuda. I would like to confirm that this feature was new for 71. A couple of 70 Barracuda owners have told me that in order to lock their doors, they must use the key. If true, can the 1970 door lock assembly be converted to work "keyless" like the 71?
The reason I ask: In the mid-seventies my Autumn Bronze 71 Barracuda was involved in a minor collision. The body shop replaced the drivers door with a 70 Cuda door. Not knowing any better, I always (30+ years) assumed that there was something wrong with the drivers door lock. Just this past year while searching the web, I found factory specs on the 1971 Barracuda where it talked about the "keyless" operation. So now it seems that I have the wrong style mechanism (1970).
If a conversion is not feasible, then I need to find a 71-74 version. So how I would I tell the difference between a 70 and 71-74 latch/lock assembly when searching swap meets?

Thanks,
David

Thats very easy..the 70 is very hard to find...71 and up are a dime a dozen....just find a nice one thats not worn out...that 70 latch is rare..

no help with your problem, but WELCOME aboard !

Still looking for a picture for you of the difference..it has an extra lever..like I said, you cant miss it..is the 70 latch in good shape?..I will take it off your hand

I modded my 70 because it was a pain to have to use the key.
Just use a Dremel with cutoff wheel and cut the end of that extra lever off.

Silly question, but on my pre-'74 AMCs, you press the lock button and then you have two choices. Either:

a) with the door open, pull the interior handle - then release. Close the door. Door remains locked.

b) with the door open, hold the exterior paddle OUT and shut the door. Door will remain locked.

Is that not the case with the Barracuda? I remember my '68 New Yorker was pretty much the same. Lock the door, pull the interior handle, close the door.

The 70 only Chrysler/Dodge/Plymouth line up had the feature where the key was required to lock the car from the outside, on the drivers side only

Thanks everyone. What a great forum! The amount of knowledge here is incredible! I will not modify the 70 latch since it is a rarity. Thanks AARCONV. I will give you first shot at it if I decide to part with it. I think I may just try to find a complete 71 and up driver's door. The reason being is that the base Barracuda doors do not have the stainless trim along the top edge like the Cuda. The body shop filled those 8 holes with filler. Over the years, most of the filler has fallen out.

Also a big thanks to CNXT for the pictures. When looking at my other 71 base coupe for comparison, I never noticed that other lever.

David

This does not apply to E-bodies, both doors in 1970 need the key to be locked from the outside.

So if you're sitting the car and you lock the door, someone could walk up at a red light and open the door?

If you’re sitting in the car and the lock button (that’s inside the door handle pull cup) is pushed down then the door cannot be opened from the outside.

I'm an idiot, reread your original post.

LOL, no you’re not. Sometimes I just scan through posts and miss something. My 1970 has both types of latches, driver side is ‘70 style and passenger side is ‘71+ (the wrong one). That’s why I did some in depth research into this.

Simpler explanation is the door has to be closed to lock it.
If door is open the lock latch will not push down.
So, you can lock door from inside (when closed), or the key is needed when outside (door closed)

Annoying feature for passenger door, driver has to wait until passenger exits and closes door, and then reach over and push lock button down.

I cut off the tab on passenger latch to get rid of this 70 only feature.

Here is a picture of the difference

My first car a 69 Charger was they way too.

Dodge Darts from 67-72 were like that too, I actually liked that you had to lock the car with the key, I never locked my keys in the car!

If you are in the car, you can lock the doors from the inside. But if I recall on my 70 Challenger, once you opened the door, the lock lever could not be depressed. You had to close the door and lock it with the key.

If I remember correctly on a 70 if you lift up the outside door handle you can lock the door with inside lock but you must hold up on outside handle until door closes.

I just came in from the garage and tried that on my driver's door with a '70 latch - It didn't work

FWIW, on another forum I looked like an idiot for second guessing myself due to the statement " on the driver's side only" . Since no one challenged that or checked into it I doubted myself . See, my passenger door has the wrong latch, and I knew that, but reading that previous unproven comment in this thread got me all messed up.

Whoever created that pic showing the difference is absolutely brilliant…………

indeed