Just as an FYI for anyone looking to take a couple broken/inoperative elocker actuators and make 1 good one. Externally they are the same, the housing and the gear that moves the the rack/shift fork are the same. Internally there are differences, so some parts may not swap back and forth. I'm doing this because a new actuator will run >$800, good used ones are near impossible to find, and Downey is no longer in business (no other cable actuated conversions that I know of ).
This is what I started with (see that giant corroded hole on the left one? Gotta love road salt in the winter)
You can start to see differences between the two here. Parts on the left are from the actuator on the left in the pic above. The shafts are different (same length at least), the one on left is a one piece with a smaller diameter pilot bushing on one end. The one on left also only has 1 coil spring (if you stack the 2 on the right, they end up being approx same height). How they operate is the same, on the right, the coil springs are installed opposite each other and engage the shaft directly. On the left, the single spring engages the collar on the stop pawl and handles twisty forces in both directions. None of these parts swap between the 2 styles
There's also a change in the worm drive from the motor itself to the big gear which turns the external gear. The one on the bottom is from the actuator on the left and has finer teeth.
Which also means the motor drive itself has a finer drive mesh on the worm gear
incidentally, the one on the left also had a motor magnet out of place which made it weaker (though the giant hole + 2 cups of dirt + corrosion is what ultimately killed that one)
So I decided to repair the one with the giant hole since the housing is (more-or-less complete). I took everything apart and wire wheeled the bejeezus out of everything to get mud/dirt/rust/corrosion out of there. Glued the motor magnet back in place, lubed it up really good and got it somewhat back together. The motor works, the gear turns and the contacts make good contact. Now I just need to fix the giant hole - I'm trying epoxy putty now. If that doesn't look like it'll hold, I may try 1/4" plate steel (drilled bolt pattern) with a machined bushing welded on for the drive gear shaft to ride in. Luckily, my friend/roomy/landlord has a lathe in his race shop. I'll update as I get frustrated.