on being stubborn with sargent & greenleaf 8088 padlock

[tech4reg]

hi all,
first and foremost - congrats on your 10th year , you have a great informative forum.
i hope this post is in place , although i read the ROE, please forgive me if i did something wrong.

i have and old sargent & greenleaf 8088 padlock
when i have stored it - i prepared for my lack of memory so i left the lock with the back slit open.
of course i forgot the combo
now - the lock is not attached to anything ( i don't mind posting a picture, or whatever ) and i know it's a 10$ worth lock, but this really nags me, so before throwing it away angrily, i decided to post.
after i have read a few posts on how to reset ( especially viewtopic.php?f=8&t=49284) they were quite helpful ,
i looked at the back slit and it seems i combo'ed it on 45-45-45 ..... but this will not open.
when passing to the 0 at the end it kinda stops on about 11 but i can force it to 0 .
so i think my lock has lost sync.

i used to have a lever to change the combo - is that also a reset key?
if not how do i get my hands on a reset wrench?
will it help at all or just throw it?
can i reset without the key ( using a pin or something or does the specific form of the lever is required?

i hope i did not bore anyone
thank
Isaac.

[blakhal0]

the lockwiki has an excellent writeup on this lock http://www.lockwiki.com/index.php/S%26G_8088. It's never worth throwing a lock away, there's always something to learn, usually more if you no longer care about keeping the lock physically intact and functioning. If you are bound and determined to just throw it away I'm sure there are plenty of people that would like to have it instead of it going to the landfill.

From the look of the shackle this lock may be able to be double shimmed to get it open, I'm not entirely sure how the butterfly part works and if that is able to be moved without the correct combo being entered, but it's worth a shot. Pop cans are cheap and if it doesn't work you're probably not going to do any damage to the lock. I have my doubts that this will work.

From the sound of it if you don't know the original combo you cannot reset the lock to a new combo.

If all else fails you can try to just brute force it. The lock's not going anywhere unless you make it.

Go read up on manipulation decoding techniques on the google and practice, I don't think that discussing manipulation techniques are allowed here in the general forums so I can't really give you any advise on that front.

Good luck.

[Squelchtone]

Hi and welcome to the forum,

One good to follow ROE is to always Search the forum first, there are at least 4 or 5 other 8088 padlock posts, it would probably help everyone if all the tips and help were in one post. Here's such a post now: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=55202

If you left the window open, you can figure out the combination but you did not mention what you are seeing inside the window when the dial says 45. Are you seeing the Square holes for the change key or are you seeing the /__\ shaped wheel gates? You may or may not know but there is an offset that needs to be added/subtracted in order to transfer what you see in the change key hole to what the crows foot at high noon on the dial says.

Please try this: dial a bunch of times counter clockwise and after 4 or so full revolutions, stop on 25. now turn slowly clockwise to the right until the dial stops at 0 under the crows foot index. Now pull up on the shackle sharply.

good luck,
Squelchtone