Broken key in car ignition barrel

[dan7]

Went to a job late one night last week. A child had broken the ignition key off in the barrel of a 1991 Renault Espace. After about an hour of unsuccessfully trying to extract the remainding key out of the barrel, I decided to strip down the column and push the key out from behind. This proved successful but took me nearly two hours!!! Is there a special way of taking broken keys out of double sided wafer locks??? Any help would be greatly appreciated for future reference!!!:roll:

[Mad Mick]

I don't really want to state the obvious, but did you try a broken-key-extractor?

[EvoRed]

Could you not have picked any remaining wafers not set, to allow you to move the ignition position and remove the barrel, making it easier to extract the key?

[Chucklz]

Do make sure you are lifting the other wafers out of the way as you attempt to withdraw the key, or else you shall never remove it.

[dan7]

Yes i did try a broken key extractor. The key was 'intruding' by about 10mm!! It was nearly impossible to grip. I ended up drilling out two locating pins and pushing out from the rear.

[carloski]

hello dan7, are you sure it was a double sided wafer lock, because renault/citroen/peugeot ignitions generally use pins not wafers, and the pins are only on one side of the ignition lock, when you have broken keys in these type of locks i normally use a key extractor with a slight hook so that you can get the hook past the pins and into a cut on the key to drag the key out

[ufd538]

what about spiral extractors?

[dan7]

yeah, i tried the spiral extractor aswell - no joy. not a problem though, just wanted to get some ideas for future reference. thanks guys!.....