Dexter Deadbolt stuck

[aviator151]

Hello, I just have recently undertaken lockpicking. The problem is with a door in my apartment. It is a dexter 5 pin, maybe 6 not sure, deadbolt that is locking my hot water heater and I do not have a key for it. The bolt moves left into the frame, and I picked the lock, moved the plug 90 degress counter clockwise and it froze. The pins are on the bottom and I am thinking the problem is that the pins are too far in the plug due to gravity now and are blocking it from moving. It will not budge in either direction. Since I can not open the door, I can't open the deadbolt to take it apart. I doubt this will be a problem for me even after I move out, but I would like to be able to fix what I did. Any solutions or ideas on how to fix this?

[WhiteHat]

if you actually mean 180 degrees and not 90, with the key pins underneath then the likely solution is that the drivers have become stuck in the bottom of the keyway - use the flat side of any pick and push up the drivers (they are now where the bottom of a key would normaly go) in order to allow the plug to turn.

[Mr Ules]

Dexter brand deadbolt was the first deadbolt I picked. Found them to be very cheap.

[aviator151]

yeah, sorry i meant 180. I'm not sure how i can manipulate the drivers in order to push them. None of them will even budge.

[WhiteHat]

Ok- when you rotated the plug, it ended up with the key pins (the pins that the key touches) on the "bottom". don't push on these - remaining at the "top" near to where the bottom of the key would normaly go are the driver pins. slide the flat edge of your pick along where these are (pushing up).

don't push on the pins that you can see, push up.

see section 9.11 of the MIT guide:

http://www.capricorn.org/~akira/home/lo ... pter9.html

there's a picture on the right hand side and shows basically what's happening.

[aviator151]

thank you, that worked. I was confused by what parts of the lock were being called the "bottom" and "top."

But when I had the driver pins up and the plug could move freely it wouldn't pass the 180 degree mark and move the total 360. Was this still a driver pin related problem?

[Varjeal]

You may require extra turning pressure (use a small flat screwdriver to do this NOT your tension wrench) as at the 180 degree mark you are now exerting pressure on the mechanism to retract the bolt. This may also require some movement of the door itself a bit as the bolt may be binding on the strike plate causing excessive pressure.

Also, if the bolt of the lock is pointing to the left, you should be picking the lock CLOCKWISE not counter-clockwise to unlock it.

[raimundo]

try lifting the door by the handle, as the weight of the whole door may be resting on the bolt, this happens when buildings settle on the foundations, and can be found on doors that haven't been opened in a long time or if the usual user of the key is just used to lifting the door handle to open the door.