I recently faced exactly this same issue on the wife's 1980 with power locks. You can search for the posting on this site - not that long ago.

I agree with what others have posted. In my case, I got very lucky indeed. The actuator was fine. Really, all I needed to do was remove the door panel and spray a bunch of spray-grease on the linkage pivots and the door lever connections. After doing that everything was great with the locks, opening/closing.

However, there is always something... When I removed the door panel (likely the 1st time since buying the car) I discovered that the butcher paper vapor barrier - while still mostly there - disintegrated into tiny bits upon my touch. So I ended up creating a new one out of clear visqueen and taped it to the door metal with duct tape.

Having also recently dealt with a door panel on my own car that had gotten seriously wet and rotten, I was prepared for all of this. I also coated the fiber board on the wife's door panel with some polyurethane and then made a vapor barrier - again from clear visqueen - that I attached to the fiber board itself with butyl caulk.

Finally, when I had the panel removed I noticed the all too common cracks in the door metal directly above the speaker mount. I found these on the drivers side of my own car as well. I first drilled a 1/4" hole at the very end of the cracks to relieve stress and help prevent further spread of the crack. I then "splinted" the crack's length with a strip of thin sheet metal from the hardware store - bent to follow the curves in the door metal and held in place with JB Weld. I am now convinced that these cracks result from the way the speaker is mounted to the door panel only. On my own car, I decided to remove the speakers and rely only on the rear deck speakers. But my wife wouldn't hear of that (no pun intended). So I did as I was told and put it all back together again.

May your experience with the door handle/locks be as easy as mine.

for diagrams

Go to this website:

https://ozvolvo.org/archive/


TYPE this in (filter) Search

Volvo/240 Accessories/8-83-9 central locking.pdf

(scroll down if the search fails)

Usually this is a result of water getting into the actuator mechanism, but others have claimed a bit of lube to the lock parts frees things up without needing to investigate inside the actuator.

In one car, I found the wiring to the lock actuator was about to break - down to one strand left unbroken in the door jamb, limiting the current available to the actuator.
--
Art Benstein near Baltimore

Today I was a hero! I rescued some beer that was trapped in a bottle.

have you tried pushing in on the handle then squeezing the lever??

You'll likely have to remove the inner door panel and see what has come adrift. Not hard to do on a 240.

Unscrew and remove the lock pushbutton. Pry out the plastic surround around the interior door handle. Pry out the little plugs in the armrest and unscrew the largish Phillips screws hidden by them. Remove armrest. I then use a couple of old, dull dinner knives to "straddle" each of the hidden plastic fasteners around the panel perimeter and pry them out. This helps to prevent the fasteners from tearing through the panel material - a kind of fibreboard that is now close to 30 years old. Lift the panel upward until the lip clears the door sheet metal. Set it aside and see what's going on with your lock bits.

...been a while, but think I'm remembering that right. Others will chime in if not.
--
Son's XC70, daughter's XC60, my 83 244DL, 89 745 (Chev LT-1 V8), and XC60. Also '77 MGB with Chev V6, and four old motorcycles. Long gone: 1981 244, 1994 940 and 1998 S90.