Practice installs?

[Chucklz]

For strike alignment, make a dowel the same diameter as the crossbore and drill a small hole in the center. Glue in a nail or pin, so that just the tip sticks out. Make the dowel short enough so that you can insert it into the crossbore, shut the door and use your finger to push the point against the door frame. Drill, mortise and done.

[2octops]

The kwikset kit comes with the alignment tool. If you loose it, just cut 2-1/2" from a broom handle and put a finishing nail in the center and grind it to a point.

To be completely honest about what I have in MY van.... I have a piece of aluminum that was 6" long. I bent it at a 90° angle 2" from one end. Drill 2 holes in the end, one for the center of a 1-3/8" residential door and one at the center of a 1-3/4" commercial or exterior door. On the long part, drill one hole at 2-3/8 and one at 2-3/4 for setting backset. I copied one someone else had

Simple to use, just hold it up to a door, use a automatic center punch to mark the end of the door and your backset, flip it over and line up the hole in the end of the door and mark your backset from the other side. Drill half way thru the cross bore with a 1/4" bit, change sides of door and drill the other way. If you are level and straight, your holes will line up. This gives you a nice pilot hole for the bit in the center of your holesaw.

The KW kit comes with a large bit for drilling the cross bore and not a holesaw.

You can find those kits on Ebay pretty cheap sometimes.

[2octops]

Metal doors are a little different. They don't take so well to trying to use a chisel to mortise out a latch plate.

Some are already prepped for a deadbolt and have the tabs welded in place for mounting the latch. Most are not so now comes the fun part.

The easy way out is to use a drive in latch and hope the deadbolt never gets a little loose so the bolt never slips out of the end of the door. Some are better than others.

You can use a product called a bridge that looks like this


You cut out a rectangular hole in the end of the door to match the bolt. Insert this into the hole and pop rivet it in place. This gives you something to screw the latch plate to.

Another trick to these is to use a Squeeze Play to form a rectangular dent (if you will) into the end of the metal door to mount the bolt. These are very expensive but work extremely well.


Another trick is to use a door reinforcer plate that has a place recessed into the end of it for mounting a latch plate.



Something else to watch out for on this hollow metal doors (especially residential grade) is there is nothing to keep the door from physically collapsing when you tighten the screws that hold the lock together. You can purchase inserts from various mfg's to prevent this from happening. You simply drill the cross bore holes, insert the sleeve and then the lock.

http://www.hudsonlock.com/ESP/ames_door_lock_support.html

Here's a pic of the template similar to what I use for marking the holes


There are still special cases that will arise when working with metal doors like having a seam down the center of the edge of the door. They make special mounting bridges for these also.

Any questions, please feel free to ask.