krelnius wrote:Oh no I really am an amateur I just thought that I'd link the site itself because I dont know if their brand is bad or if the price is too much.
I'm trying to take apart a door lock right now but i cant get it apart. I read the guide on taking apart but i'm not that far yet, I'm staring at a door knob prying on it with a crowbar...its off the door but its still a door handle with a lock on the front and I'm out of screws.
Any suggestions?
I hope you've figured it out by now. It's a little different with each brand but with a Kwikset, you look around the cosmetic collar for slots that a flat screwdriver would fit into. You pry the cosmetic collar cover off with said screwdriver but it'll the cover though loose will still be between the door and the knob rather than coming completely off. You don't need it to come off as you can now look around it and see a piece of metal in a slot that has in itself an arrow shaped notch, using your flat headed screwdriver, you push on this in the direction of the arrow sliding it through the slot and releasing both halves of the door knob (no need for a crow bar, it just comes out). The doorknob with the key will have stem coming out the back, this stem is held in place by a spring loaded gate that needs to be pressed aside to pull it out, you can use the flat end of their "cylinder extraction tool" or a flat headed screwdriver to do this as per their pdf file for download from their website, basically you push on a tab sliding the gate over and the stem falls out. After that if it's a 5 pin lock, the lock is held in the knob by two metal clips, if you stuff the forked end of the cylinder extraction tool into the hole left by the stem keeping it perpendicular to the half moon that surrounded the stem, it's supposed to hold those clips in while pushing on the lock, most people just wind up bashing the extraction tool or a screwdriver in there till the lock comes out and simply straighten out the metal clips later. If it's a 6 pin lock, the lock is held in place by a steel wafer held to the lock body by a sprung cotter pin, if you insert your key into the plug and rotate it 180 degrees, the pin will cause the wafer to retract into the plug and the lock will just slide out of the knob. Pull out the cotter pin and remove the steel wafer as it will interfere with the movement of the plug. The forked end of the extraction tool can then be used to push the plug retaining clip off and you can push the plug out with the plug follower or a 1/5 inch wooden dowel (0.495 inches to be precise), the plug follower/dowel is to retain the pins and springs in the bible. Alternatively, you can pry off the spring retention clip and remove the springs and pins from the top. Going in from the top is the only sure way of removing any mastering of the locks as the master pins may be pushed up into the bible by the regular key. Hint to insert the cotter pin back into the wafer, turn the plug till the wafer falls into the slot in the plug before trying to insert the cotter pin.
Learned this the hard way while re-keying my house. There's a cylinder extraction tool out there that's a bit banged up since the instructions from Kwikset are only about the metal clips holding the lock in not about the wafer. I borrowed the tools from a local hardware store. Note Kwikset will mail you an extraction tool if you call them and ask.
Note that the 6 pin Kwiksets are supposed to have three spool top driver pins in the front three bore holes of every lock but what I found on my house was that the builders left out the front most pins and springs on half the locks and only had one spool pin in the frontdoor deadbolt. They also had the locks mastered for builder's keys which meant that it would be trivial to file a key to open the entire neighborhood. Definitely worth re-keying a house yourself to remove these security problems.
You might want to play with dead bolts first, they're a little more expensive but much easier to take out and put back into a door.
