Today on Repairs101 : deadbolt lock replacement.
Oh man, you know you got problems when your key rotates more than three hundred and sixty degrees in one direction. I’m going to replace it and I’ll show you how it’s done.
Lucky for me I’m locked in not locked out. So I can take care of this without having to break a window. See I’ve go a key lock inside as well as outside. I’d recommend it for any door like this one that has a window in it. It’s easy for a burglar to smash and reach his hand in and turn a latch. On a door with a double cylinder lock… Anybody who reaches in is going to be in for a surprise. Because if the key’s not there they still can’t open the door very easily.
So I just thought we’d take a look inside my locks box. It’s a box of locks. I’ve got an awful lot of locks in here. Some interesting stuff.
OK I’ve got the Allen key here that opens this particular lock-set up. Just a couple of quick turns…
Yeah. OK so there you go so the inside cylinder just drops away and then the outside cylinder also comes off. OK obviously something’s wearing out. Oh yeah, there’s a pretty good look at it right there.
Schlage
OK so I went with the Schlage brand double cylinder deadbolt. Double cylinder meaning there’s a key on both sides. Don’t leave your spare key in there as a latch because that will simply defeat the purpose of having one. Let’s get this thing unpacked. OK so have a look. I’ve unpacked the Schlage double cylinder lock kit and I just want to show you what we got.
First of all the instructions – very important – exploded diagrams, which I love. OK. For my money there’s nothing better than an exploded diagram to show you what’s what. Going around: a template, various hardware, striker plate. Mounting bolts, set screws for the striker plate, some real nice brass keys. And the reset keys that come with it. So that you can change the locks of other Schlage locks to match these keys. Or vice versa have this blank key cut to match your existing Schlage lock keys and then rekey your new lock to match your old keys. It’s a great deal.
Get what you pay for
It’s also a good quality lockset, OK you can see the difference. I went and bought a medium priced, “middle of the road” lock set before I got the Schlage. Thinking I would be smart and try and save myself some money. Now I’m just showing you the back. I’m going to try to show you this without showing you the name of the other one because I’m not going to recommend them. Both have the same kind of outside. Brushed stainless steel casings and then they both have the same type of device but really they’re not very similar, you want to have a really close look at things sometimes. For instance, this one’s pick guard, OK just pops right off like that, it’s very cheaply put in it’s just pushed into place.
Extra security
The idea of that is of course to stop someone. Not from picking the lock but from opening the lock using a pick. That’s all I’ll say because I don’t want to be teaching people how to break into doors. The weight of the objects themselves. The Schlage on my right feels like it weighs about twice as much as this other brand on my left. Also just to compare the housings of the two deadbolts bodies, this one, again much lighter than this one. So something else you’re going to compare when you’re looking at the two different locks is the deadbolt itself. The Schlage deadbolt on the right is larger than the other brand on the left. You can see there’s a lot more metal there to do it’s job.
OK so after I clean it up and bow out the debris I just want to show you that this is in fact what you’re looking at. That’s our deadbolt, that’s how far it fits into the doorframe, and there it is right there.
Re & re
OK we’re just going to take the old deadbolt out real quick. It’s just a matter of undoing a couple of Phillips head screws. So, here we are. Here’s the old one. It pulls out nice and easy. There is nothing wrong with this particular mechanism so I’m just going to save it. I’m going to save it in my locks box. It’s a box of locks. And presto magic we’re ready to load in the new one. Orient it correctly, it says top so you want to hold that end up and just drop it in.
I’ll just start putting these screws back in. You can hear the symphony. Enjoy the symphony of sirens while I’m doing this together. Life in the city, eh?
[Sirens]
OK you don’t want to over-tighten these things because you don’t want to distort the shape of it. So you see I just back that off a little bit, and just take a standard screwdriver and try it. Runs nice and smooth.
Critical information
For reassembly, the object of the game will be to get this little tab this little tab which is flat on one side and bulged or rounded on the other side. OK you’re going to try and get that tab in the slot that controls the deadbolt. OK so you’re going to get that in like that from the other side, and then you need to match up this one – the interior one – also flat side to flat side. And you know you have to do this blindly through the door, that’s why I’m showing you this way. So you’re going to have to be able to line up flat side to flat side and then find its way in so that it also shares its ability to turn the deadbolt.
Key to success
OK. The key to it – pardon the pun – is to make sure these tongues are flat side to flat side and not round side to round side. If you try to do them round side to round side you’re going to have real problems and it’s going to work just beautifully otherwise.
I’ve just got a hold of the outside cylinder with my finger there. It’s already put into that slot I just showed you. I’ve got the inside cylinder here and I’ve got the little tongue lined up so that it can slide into the controller into the deadbolt controller.
Flat side to flat side with the tongue from the outside cylinder and I’m getting a little resistance, there we go it just dropped right in nice and easy. OK so now just take the screws they provided and assemble it and we’re done.
Finish those off. Stick the key in. There it goes. It’s a little snug so I’ll back off and try and centre it a bit better. And we’re done.
