Door Lock Cylinder

[kcmash]

OK, I have the Mechanism of the day.  

I am tired of looking at the holes in the door behind the door handles.  So I pulled out the door lock cylinders to install them and came up with all the silly questions.

1)  When the little door in the key window is not visible, is it likely missing, or stuck?  How do I fix that?

2) What is the proper lube to use for the key cylinder, and how do you apply it?

3) Is there a gasket that goes around the cylinder, or does it rest flush on the paint?

4) Anyone tried putting these in on good paint?  Mine is a little tight on the passengers side.  Worried about chipping.  Should I grease it up fr install?

5)  If I cannot fix the little door in Q1 above, have any of you bought new key cylinders and had them keyed to your ignition?

Thanks!

kcmash

 

[OzCoupe72]

The "window" is probably spring loaded but never having taken one apart could not advise on this

If it was me and it didn't free up with some lubrication I would probably replace it

To lube the cylinder best to use powdered graphite, just put the nozzle in and squeeze a puff of it in, some on the key can help, push it in a few times

Yes there is a gasket between the door and cylinder and would use this, if no gasket water will get in

I bought a complete matching lock set but you could also get a locksmith to re-key it for you and they may even be able to fix the cylinder but I suspect they could charge more than it is worth

 

[Don C]

There's a little flapper in there that has a very small spring that closes it so it doesn't take much to cause it to stick open. The spring can also be worn out and broken. They are not repairable. How long has it been open? If very long there is likely a lot of dirt in there. I would flush it out with WD40 or an electronic cleaner that won't harm plastic or paint. Graphite has been used for a long time for lock cylinders, but I've never cared much for it. You don't want to use an oily lubricant that can attract dust and freeze up in the winter, and you want to stay away from silicon lubricant, as it can ruin future paint jobs. I prefer a spray lubricant that cleans and flushes out the dirt and then dries without any residues that can gum up the tumblers. I've had good luck with 3-in-One lock lube and a new product called Super Slick Stuff.

I rekey my own locks, it's easy, just take the tumbler pins and springs out of the old cylinders and put them in the new ones. The only hard part is keeping the springs and pins organized and put back in the correct positions. Just take your time prying the spring/pin retainer off, so the springs and pins don't wind up across the room. You can cover all of the holes with a finger and uncover one hole at a time. There are two pins in each hole and they are a matched pair, the one with the cone shaped end that rides against the key is the key pin, the other one that the spring presses against is the drive pin. There are good illustrations and descriptions on Wikipedia:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pin_tumbler_lock

The worst thing that can happen is that you have to take them to a locksmith, after all.

 

[Hemikiller]

I bought a new complete matched set when I restored my 71. I had plenty of lock cylinders, just decided to spring for new. Yes, there's a gasket, be sure to use it. If there is excessive paint in the hole, trim it with a razor blade or Xacto knife. If you expose bare metal, brush a little paint on it to protect from rust.

 

[Carolina_Mountain_Mustangs]

If you are tight on funds and do not want to switch out the pins you can have a key cut with the ignition key on one side and the door pattern on the other side of the key. Only one side of the key works they cut both sides so you cannot put in upside down. You can actually have two different cars on one set of keys. Put a notch on the top side that works for ignition. I had one cut for my vert but have misplaced it and just been carrying the two different keys one for door one for ign. I do not want to have to pull door panels again to move the pins, lol.

 

[rackerm]

I use graphite lubricant in a small tube and just insert the nozzle into the key hole to blow some in. Since its dry it does not attract dirt but it's like a fine powder so it is messy if you get it outside the hole.

I changed the pins once in a lock. I used a piece of masking tape to lay the tiny pins on to keep them in order. Take them and the spring out one row at a time. Mix them up and it will be hard to get them back in the correct alignment.

If you add the plastic washer around the key cylinder it may fit better in the hole without having to shave the paint out of the cylinder lock hole.

 

[kcmash]

Since I don't have gaskets at this time and need to order parts I have a question.

Is the $26 kit from CJ Ponyparts with new door and ignition cylinders a pile of junk or decent?  They have 2 door locks, retainers, gaskets, an ignition cylinder and 2 keys in the kit.  I have seen in other posts that some of the repops are very poor quality and don't last.

If these parts are good for $26 I think that is the way to go.  Any opinions?

kcmash

 

[Don C]

Personally, I would get the ones from OMS, more likely to be good quality.

http://www.ohiomustang.com/store/order_page.asp?itemid=1217

 

[OzCoupe72]

I bought the CJP set although not sure if they had different brands back a couple of years ago

Works fine so far but I would go with OMS next time

 

[scarpent1]

Hurd lock out of Greeneville, TN made the original lock cylinders for Ford. If you could find some NOS locks that would probably be the best option. Otherwise Strattec Security Corp or Huf North America both made Ford locks after Hurd lost the business. Don't know if any of those door cylinders would fit or not. Both Strattec and Huf are plate tumbler locks and I don't recall if it had the same key profile or not.

 

[Carolina_Mountain_Mustangs]

Locks are a pretty precise piece of work. I built tooling for Hurd Lock for Ford products. On die cast tooling you build the cavity to the lower side of tolerance and any cores to the high side so as they wear they get closer to the nominal dimension and will run longer. One tool I sent they sent back I was .0005" too tight on the cavity. I stoned it probably 5 min. and sent back then was fine.

I was also zinc die cast engineer at National Lock Company when they were in Spartanburg, S.C.. We had rows of Dynacast casting machines. We had the only machines outside of one other company, Greise Dynacast. They bought the casting machine company out so they would have no competition. They ran lots of parts for the disposable cigarette lighter business.  Some parts ran as little as 2 second cycle.They were specifically made for doing lock cylinders and lock plugs. You have 5 actions or slides you could use if needed to fashion the part with very precise and complex tooling. The tolerances were usually .001" or less. When the lock wears that is when you start having to wiggle the key to get the tumblers to align. 

We became so efficient at making parts that we could make cheaper and way better than Taiwan. Lowe's even dumped the Taiwan hardware and put ours in place. We caused such a stir that a competitor came in and made the owners an offer they could not refuse. Amerock a division of Anchor Hocking was the company. We all thought that we would get better benefits and the company would grow with the new owners. The morning they closed the deal they called a managers meeting and announced that they bought the company for one reason to close it to eliminate us as a competitor in the hardware business. Lots of sabotage took place and key tools for customers got lost. We made the latches for the Corvette convertibles and that tooling got lost.  

After the meeting I got on phone and had job in 5 min.. 

So being good at something is not always a good thing, lol.