Dropping pins at half-turn in a deadbolt

by **ooops** » 29 Nov 2006 16:31

I picked a deadbolt, and pressed my pick against the shell at the bottom of the plug as I rotated past the 12 o'clock position, and it worked flawlessly.
After resetting the lock, I tried the same thing again, but after rotating past 12 o'clock, the plug got stuck at about 1 o'clock, which surprised me. Jiggling didn't help, but a combination of jiggling and rotating back to 12 o'clock, and then continuing clockwise again, finally cleared the jam.

What would cause this? If I dropped a pin, then either it would bind and the plug would stick at 12 o'clock, or else it would fall into the plug and the plug would rotate freely past 12 o'clock and all the way back to 6 o'clock.

by **2octops** » 30 Nov 2006 0:02

I'm confused, but is this is how it happened?

You picked the cylinder and spun it 360Â°. The second time you picked it and it hung at around 220Â° then mysteriously broke free or did it jam at around 30Â°?

by **iNtago** » 30 Nov 2006 0:28

disasimble, clean and lubracate.

it sounds like its dirty or too much grafite. :lol:

by **ooops** » 30 Nov 2006 1:51

2octops: 2nd time was to 220.

iNtago: if it's just dirty and unlubed, then I could understand it intermittently grinding a bit, but that's not what happened; it rotated smoothly and then hit a wall, and the wall was hard enough that I was afraid that if I just forced it, I would break something. I did try a large increase in force, and that didn't make it continue, which is why I then tried jiggling and rotating back.
Could a dirty, unlubed lock really exhibit the behavior I experienced?

by **melvin2001** » 30 Nov 2006 1:55

my vote is for a dirty lock, or some other similar intermittent thing... possibly the retaining nut is too tight?... thats all i can come up with...

by **melvin2001** » 30 Nov 2006 1:57

oh i just had a thought about those extra holes they drill in plugs... i think they are for the contractor keying thing... not really sure if this could even have any effect on it or not, someone that knows more about them could possibly shed some light.

by **maxxed** » 1 Dec 2006 0:23

I think that the lock is master keyed and a thin master pin managed to fall into the bottom of the keyway inspite of the fact a pick was used to hold u[p the pins. It gets back to the "do not pick the locks you rely on" theme.

by **Schuyler** » 1 Dec 2006 0:55

maxxed wrote:I think that the lock is master keyed and a thin master pin managed to fall into the bottom of the keyway inspite of the fact a pick was used to hold u[p the pins. It gets back to the "do not pick the locks you rely on" theme.

This is precisely what happened to me. I was lucky enough to find a matching master-wafer in one of my junk practice locks and repaired the lock. Best of luck to ya :\

by **lunchb0x** » 1 Dec 2006 5:37

the little holes are for if its construction keyed, this is when there are a couple of small ball bearings as bottom pins, when the owners key is used the ball bearings are pushed in to the top of the barrel and get cought in these small holes.
pins will not get jambed in hear unless someone has put a bottom pin in as a top pin, also if someone haas filed the barrel and their are master pins in the lock, wash the lock out in a bowl of shelite, or spray it with wd40

by **melvin2001** » 1 Dec 2006 12:46

i dont think its the master pin thing because the guy said the second time he was able to turn it PAST 180 to the 220 position (or just about) and thats where it stopped. if the master pin had fallen in, then wouldn't it just jam up completely at 180?

by **lunchb0x** » 1 Dec 2006 17:34

is the lock fitted to a door or are you picking it in your hand?

by **burchlockkey** » 1 Dec 2006 17:48

There is also an ever so slight chance that one of the bottom pins is for a shallow cut, i.e., 0 or 1 cut, and if the top pin is that chamber is too short, you could be damaging the spring. What makes me think this is, if you repin a lock and forget the top pins and put the springs in, the plug will spin but the springs get jammed and stretched making the plug difficult to impossible to turn. It really makes a mess of the springs. And, yes, I have done this.

:oops:

This is not a very probable senario, but it could happen.

by **lunchb0x** » 1 Dec 2006 18:16

to check if their is a top pin missing you should be able to lift the pin with no spring tension at first, if all the pins have spring tension from where they are resting in the barrel then i dont think this is your problem

Dropping pins at half-turn in a deadbolt

Dropping pins at half-turn in a deadbolt

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