I took the mechanism out of the door handles years ago, to allow the handles to be chrome plated. Now I have a bag of parts that I need to reassemble. Basically the part you push with your thumb to release the door. The guy at the link below has done a pretty good job of documenting how he did his, yet I am hung up. In the unlocked position, there is a “stem” that sticks out on the back side and pushs open the “paddle” leading to the latch mechanism. As he demonstrates, when you lock the door with your key, this stem does not extend. I understand the concept but for the life of me I can’t get it to work as required. I don’t see any function that pushs the stem into the extended position.
If anyone has direct experience, I would love to have a chat. I’m just not quite sure what I am missing. PM me.
BTW, one of my lock cylinders is broken, as circled in the photo. These are available from SNG. It’s what I call the “stem”, just above the lock cylinder in the photo (the one on the left has the adjustment screw inserted into it) that I can’t figure out.
I sense that with the door unlocked, the default position of the stem should be extended. Mine seems to want to be in the collapsed position, which is where it would be if the door is locked. I can pulled the threaded bolt out with my fingers to extend the stem and, if I rotate it CCW (looking from the inside out) it falls onto pair of little steps that hold it in the extended position. But I can’t see any spring force, ect to put it into that position by default.
It’s been a long time since I looked inside mine, but notice the shape of the inner cylinder with the tumblers. The fork on the back end is the clue. The actuating rod that pushes the latch to open, slips into the fork on the back of the cylinder when they’re lined up (locked), but it will push on the rod when they aren’t lined up. The cutout in the rear cap is the exact size on the rod, and that prevents the rod itself from rotating with the cylinder. Perhaps you’ve mixed the parts up side wise, and that is preventing it from working right.
With the door in the unlocked position, the plunger is extended as you say. This plunger is effectively keyed to the slotted hole in the lock lever that turns with the key and sticks out of the side of the mechanism as shown.
From your photos, you appear to be missing the flat washer that fits between this slotted lock lever and the end case that is attached with a pair of small screws.
The clearance here is critical and is adjusted with the threaded lock nut.
If the plunger is allowed to retract too far into the mechanism, it loses its slot orientation and cannot come out of the end case then the button is pressed. This will leave the door in the locked position, which is very annoying.
I think you need to find the missing flat washer for a start, then adjust the locking nut correctly.
It’s not exactly a washer. It’s a thin annular ring and it has two oposing tags on the inside, probably to prevent it from rotating. It fits between the two springs.
Hi Harvey i went through this exact problem about 2 months ago, and don’t completly remember what the cure was. - getting too old. It centers around refitting the pin into the pot metal cylinder (with the two hole flange) and then screwing the bolt into the top of it. The nut and washer on the bolt has to be tight against the top of the cylinder with the pin flanges aligned in the slots. What you may be experiencing is the flanges on the pin are not aligning with the slots so the pin can’t come out to push the latch when it’s unlocked.
Thanks for all the replies. I am not throwing in the towel but …
I have one broken lock cylinder and one of the other parts that is known to fail (the cap in the photo with the winged plate with 2 holes) is showing cracks. It seems incredible but SNG will sell me a pair of door handles, with keys, for $167. At a minimum, I will “go to school” on how the things are assembled. I suspect I will wind up using most of the new parts, with my newly chromed handles, if possible.
Harvey, I might have caused a bit of confusion about the washer. I have three old door locks, two that I removed from my '62 and another from a '65. Only the '65 has the flat washer that James referred to that goes into the diecast end piece on top of the lever and before the long spring.
It’s a large thin washer which just fits inside the end cap and it’s about .032" thick.
Yes, the diecast end caps fail by cracking from the slot. I guess for theprice of new handles, it’s not really worth fixing old ones except that it’s satisfying to do so.
Harvey,
I too defaulted to a new pair of handles from SNG. I spent a bit of time with a file on the door slot to get them in…only later to realize that the reason I couldn’t get them to rotate into the door slot was that on the back of the unit are two screws. The originals had flat screws the new ones had dome head screws. The dome’s extra 1/8 inch height was interfering with the edge of the door slot.
