Older Field and Stream Safe Lock Frozen

[thompsdw]

Well, frozen is not the right word. It's an older safe with a manual combination lock and handle. I recently converted the safe interior to a personal articles safe (just shelves) from a gun safe. Everything went well, but when I went to close and lock the safe - the handle will not fully close. During the reno I left the door open and unlocked. Maybe I bumped the lever or something. Not sure. The safe door is open, not locked shut. The dial lock will rotate some around the last setting but not freely and the will also move some but not fully. What can I do to get the lock back into a normal condition? Just seems jammed. I should be able to remove the door panel if needed to access the back of the lock.

I live a bit remote, so I would like to try something myself before I get a locksmith up here. Any help is appreciated.

[Squelchtone]

Please share some photos so we can see what your safe looks like and the handle position is, interior door frame, and the bolts that extend out of the edge of the door.

Can the dial turn? Can you dial the combination and then turn the handle?

*Instructions to share photos are in a link aabove the box where you type your reply.

Thank you,
Squelchtone

[thompsdw]

Here is what I found:


image host sites

It looks like the final dial position is not reproducing very well, but now a slight rotation of the dial moves it to the position necessary to open the safe. What seems to be different now for some reason is that once I took the back off of the door the dial seemed to free up. I can't explain that, but maybe the jostling around of the door freed something up. In the previous case the dial was "locked up" and the position was incorrect. I can tell you what the dial felt like. It felt like the bar was in one of those shorter notches. The dial would rotate about the same amount when I do that as a test without moving the pins fully (they did move some). I did grease the internal fittings and check all fasteners for reasonable tightness.

Any ideas? I can come up with a scenario with all the safe jostling, I just need to trust this lock before I go back to normal use.

[MartinHewitt]

Can you fully extend all bolts? Is there something bent? Or is there something wedged in, that prevents the full extension?

[thompsdw]

Yes I can fully extend all the bolts now. But I did see that the bottom bolt was dragging a bit when I first opened it today, so I greased them and now all are moving in/out very smoothly.

[billdeserthills]

I had a similar problem with a client's safe last week. The digital lock was working fine & so was the key override but one of the bolts was hanging up. Once I greased it everything worked fine

[Raymond]

check all fasteners for reasonable tightness.

From looking at the picture given, I would hope you did not tighten the two nuts visible. The top must remain loose enough that the dial can spin the wheels. And the bottom bolt must remain loose enough that the handle can move the bolts back and forth.

Also, make sure that the flat metal piece that is aimed at the wheels did not get bent forward toward the wheels as that will lock them up.

[thompsdw]

I didn’t touch the locked nut on the lock wheel. I did tighten the nut on the slide, but backed it off some so the lever handle would move smoothly. The bolt nuts were a bit loose, but everything else was pretty tight.

[GWiens2001]

Do the shelves push against the inner door panel?

Gordon

[thompsdw]

They do not. Probably 3” spacing.

[thompsdw]

For future reference, should one lubricate the dial lock itself? What should I use if so?

[MartinHewitt]

Lubrication attracts dirt, so it should be used very lightly. The proper places are the outside of the wheel post, i.e. the tube which guides the wheels, and probably where the dial touches the dial ring on the outside of the door.