05-12-2020, 04:33 PM (This post was last modified: 05-12-2020, 04:48 PM by Chris KC.)
I have a pair of working door latches which would benefit from a little detailed repair and re-finishing.
However, having stared long and hard, I see no obvious way to dismantle the latch bolts for maintenance i.e. reversibly.
The levers look they might be freed by drifting out the square pivot tubes, but will they go back together again soundly?
Does anyone have experience of how these can be stripped and re-assembled without tears?
I'd rather leave them as they are than risk messing them up.
I should perhaps add that there is a certain manque of metal (just for you Renaud!) at some key wear points which no amount of squirty lube is going to put back on! Not overly bothered about cosmetics or friction, which is at any rate OK. I was hoping to either build up or replace worn areas of the latch bolt and bullet posts (the latter need not entail stripping the latch bolt of course).
I have recently rebuilt my locks. After a good soaking in oil, the square bar tapped out. The spring tongue had a tang in the pressed steel which stops the tongue going too far out. I needed to fiddle around to get past this. My tongues were worn and needed a piece of metal on the back to build them up again. A bit of bending of the pressed steel where it had been bent over the years, a good clean and lubricate and it all reassembled well. It all operates smoothly now.
Probably doesn’t help but these are the two locks from my RK. As Jamie says it is possible to pull out the latch once the actuator arm is out. One of the actuators on my car was missing so I fabricated the one in the right.
I dismantled the lockon my RK...it was intact but worn and I aralditeď some shim stainless steel to the worn part of the case and it makes the tongue much less floppy...and thus the door no longer rattles.
David
Thank you Jamie / David / Howard. I think though the structure of my locks is slightly different, there's no way the latch bolt can be 'drifted out' as the enclosed end is deeper than the only slot it can exit by.
Having now slept on the question I see I have misunderstood how the lock is assembled.
I think removing the 4 rivets and perhaps also the 'bullet' post will result in the whole thing falling apart in 2 halves, whereupon all will be free. Except possibly the lever pivot, which I'm assuming can be tapped out (and later tapped back in again...)
Whether this is actually a good idea I will consider deeply...
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