Spindle Lube for ancient safe?

[flyingbovine]

Here's my situation...

I'm a rookie safe-manipulator, and one of my clients has asked me to help them get into a safe that was installed some time after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. There's an inscription on the dial that reads "Greenleaf", in that turn-of-the-century-esqe cursive. The safe put into place, and had what appears to be load-bearing concrete poured around it. It's literally cast into the building. The building is currently occupied by a non-profit agency that has been there for many, many years. Legend has it that the combination to the safe was passed down from a resigning director and to the incoming director. A new director came on board sometime around the waning years of the Nixon Administration, and when the safes password was requested, the outgoing director didn't have it. That was some time around 1974. Since then, the inside of this safe has not seen the light of day.

I've been manipulating it, and I've determined it to be a 4-number lock. The first three wheels to engage turn OK, but the last one seems gunked up with something....it requires a bit of elbow grease to turn. Right off the bat, the spindle felt *really* sloppy. There seemed to be couple thousands play in in. At any rate, the manipulation seemed to be going OK. I'm pretty sure I have the 3rd and 4th numbers. But after a bit of dialing, the spindle started to squeal, big time. It got so bad that I couldn't find contact points anymore, and I have two more numbers to go.

I'd like to apply a bit of lube to the spindle. I cannot get the dial off (note: didn't really try that hard). My first inclination is to dribble some oil down from the top of the dial (there's a good .050" gap I can put it into), and hope some of the oil finds it's way to the spindle. I also have some Mantek TLR-44 Dry Lube. On the other hand, I've found over-and-over again that when dealing with safes, it's always better to ask-first than to jump-in headfirst and assume.

Does anyone have any advice for doing a quick locked-safe lubrication on the spinlde? Can I just drip oil down the back of the dial, or is this going create a myriad of unforeseen problems? Lastly, would I be better off using Oil (Triflow) or the TLR-244 Dry Lube?

Thanks in advance. If I can get this thing open, I'll be a hero to this client

Mike

[LockDocWa]

I don't think your going to be able to get the oil where you need it.
Trying to oil a safe lock from the outside is for the most part futile.
If you get crazy lucky, and you happen to get the oil into the spindle area
where it sounds like you need it, I normally use Tri Flow.
If you KNOW or THINK you KNOW the last 2 numbers trial and error for the first 2
should be a snap.

Photos would be great !

[flyingbovine]

Hey LockDockWa,

I got impatient, and went ahead with triflow before I read this. It worked with minimal mess, and the squeal in the mechanism was more or less subdued. I can now feel both left and right contact points. On the bad side, this new-found smoothness showed me that my 3rd number was garbage. Now, I only have *one* number...the last one. There was some nasty adhesive gunk on the top of the dial. This gunk obscured "Sergeant" while leaving "Greenleaf" exposed, hence my error on the dial's previous description. As for the cursive-esqe writing, I had that mixed up with another safe I was working on last week. Here's a pic of the dial:

http://www.flyingbovine.com/images/pub/oldsafe1.jpg

Here's a pic of the front door:

http://www.flyingbovine.com/images/pub/oldsafe2.jpg

What I have right now:

*I think* this lock is what's commonly described as "four wheels and a driver" (This means 4 loose wheels and a drive cam attached to the spindle, no?). There's a *BIG* drop in distance between the contact points when I hit the number on the 4th wheel or as I put it, L5N-R4N-L3N-R2K (N=any num, ?=Test Num, K= Known Num). I assumed fence-lean with the low point over the 4th wheel. Tried every other number on the 3rd wheel (L5*-R4*-L3N-R2K) in combination with the known number on the last wheel, didn't get much variation...maybe a quarter gradation at most, and no pattern that *really* stood out. Plan on doing L5?-R4N-L3N-R2K and L5N-R4?-L3N-R2K when I get time.

Posted links to the pics...could not get image links to work. 2nd pic is sideways...for some reason, it insists on rotating itself.

I've got about 8 hours into this thing so far, and I *WILL* get into it. Any insights on how to go after this thing would be appreciated