Air carrier technician reported while troubleshooting an A319 door escape slide arm-disarm lever resistance; the technicians opened the door with the escape slide lever in the disarm position. When the door was operated the last time; the girt bar was engaged in the floor fittings and the escape slide deployed but did not inflate.

Narrative

On Aircraft X writeup in aircraft logbook stated door 2L difficult to arm/disarm. Checked door with dynometer and found that 30/35 ft lb were required to arm/disarm door slide. This exceeded the allowed 22 ft/lb in the AMM (Aircraft Maintenance Manual) reference so we tried to find out what was causing the higher resistance. We lubed the girt bar and still no change so we removed the upper inner door cover to investigate the handle area and lubed the handle area. We were always careful to disarm slide at 2L door with the handle before opening the door. My coworker opened the door several times without any problem with the slide in disarm position and on the last operation the girt bar remained in the door frame and the slide deployed but did not inflate. The door assist bottle also deployed.