Door locks
Door locks
Author
Discussion

Johan G

Original Poster:

196 posts

283 months

Wednesday 15th January 2003
quotequote all
I need to change the door locks on my S3C since the previous owner didn't have any keys to give me. I have read in the spare parts list that the door handles are from Capri Mk II. Does anyone know if the lock cylinders are the same as for other 70's Ford models? Perhaps it is possible to use lock cylinders from an Escort or Granada from that time? I hope someone has an answer for me. Thanks.

Johan

>>> Edited by Johan G on Wednesday 15th January 10:26

dangerous

99 posts

287 months

Wednesday 15th January 2003
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I definatly have a key from a late 70's early 80's Ford for my S3 so I guess they used the locks that came with the door handles.

M@H

11,298 posts

294 months

Wednesday 15th January 2003
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Didn't the S3C have TVR door Handles !?

Cheers
Matt.

Podie

46,647 posts

297 months

Wednesday 15th January 2003
quotequote all

M@H said: Didn't the S3C have TVR door Handles !?

Cheers
Matt.


The handles are from a Capri... but have TVR stamped on them... if they haven't got TVR stamped on them, you can assume they've been replaced...!

Johan G

Original Poster:

196 posts

283 months

Wednesday 15th January 2003
quotequote all
I hope I won't need the whole handles. Hopefully I can replace only the lock cylinders.

\ Johan

Johan G

Original Poster:

196 posts

283 months

Thursday 16th January 2003
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Looked at one door yesterday evening. I loosened the trim on the inside of the door and discovered that it probably will take a lot of work to replace a handle. After a quick glance it seemed like I will have to unmount the window to reach the screws that keep the handle in place. Didn't proceed yesterday because I could not get the trim loose from the upper front corner of the door (sort of opposite to the rear view mirror). Does anyone know if the trim is fastened in some special way in that corner?
I'm starting to feel a bit discouraged by this but my plan is to unmount one of the handles to see what can be done with it.

\ Johan

Podie

46,647 posts

297 months

Thursday 16th January 2003
quotequote all

Podie said:

M@H said: Didn't the S3C have TVR door Handles !?

Cheers
Matt.


The handles are from a Capri... but have TVR stamped on them... if they haven't got TVR stamped on them, you can assume they've been replaced...!


Right, checked a but further into this... seems S's had Capri Mk2 door handles, but the S3c had TVR ones... (you can tell 'cos they're stamped)...

dangerous

99 posts

287 months

Thursday 16th January 2003
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If you want to get the door panel off there are a couple of nuts that hold it on just below the door mirror.The only way to get to them is through the speaker hole or the hole where the ashtray goes.Its just a matter of feeling round and hoping they arent done up tight cos getting a spanner in there is a pain.When you find them,push the door panel in where the nuts are and that may free them a bit so you can undo them with your fingers.It worked on mine and I only did them up finger tight when I put the panel back.

Podie

46,647 posts

297 months

Thursday 16th January 2003
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Might be worth replacing them with wing nuts if there is room... make it easier to deal with?

Johan G

Original Poster:

196 posts

283 months

Thursday 16th January 2003
quotequote all
Thanks for the tip!

Regarding TVR or Capri handles I haven't seen any TVR marks on the handles of my car. But I guess my S3C is a pretty early one (manufactured in 1990) so maybe it was equipped with the Capri-handles from factory. Or maybe the handles have already been replaced sometime before. Should the stamp be visible on the "outside" of the handle if I have the TVR type?

>> Edited by Johan G on Thursday 16th January 09:03

Podie

46,647 posts

297 months

Thursday 16th January 2003
quotequote all
TVR is stamped just to the side of the door lock on mine...

roy c

4,207 posts

306 months

Thursday 16th January 2003
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The TVR door handles have "TVR" stamped into them in 1cm high lettering at the lock end. They appear to be the same as used on Cortina Mk4 (Taunus in rest of Europe?).

shpub

8,507 posts

294 months

Thursday 16th January 2003
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Some had them... some didn't... even seen one car with TVR on one side and not on the other... Joys of handmade ownership.

The Wedges also used them but some were anodised black. The 520's certainly is.

Steve

Johan G

Original Poster:

196 posts

283 months

Thursday 16th January 2003
quotequote all
I have scoured the internet for a while and it seems to me like the Cortina Mk III might have the same type of door handles.

RichardR

2,904 posts

290 months

Thursday 16th January 2003
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Johan,

If you are doing this because you don't have any keys, why not look at fitting remote central locking instead. I know a few people have already done this for the S by connecting their alarms to actuators in the doors.

If you already have an alarm, Vision-UK do a 2 door kit (VAE 316-200) for £47.45 inc VAT (don't know how much shipping would be to Sweden) which might do the trick. Alternatively, I think most alarms can be bought with central locking kits. The other nice thing is that some of them can also be made to control the boot remotely too - very nice!

Richard

RichardR

2,904 posts

290 months

Thursday 16th January 2003
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Out of interest, if you don't have any keys for the doors, how do you start the car?

If you have an ignition key but it doesn't fit the door locks, that suggests that they've been changed at some point in the past.

Johan G

Original Poster:

196 posts

283 months

Thursday 16th January 2003
quotequote all
That is a good question indeed.
According to the previous owner the ignition lock has been replaced but not the door locks. All this is because someone broke in to the car some years ago. The insurance company wanted to replace all locks after that, but only the one for ignition has been replaced, maybe because they didn't know where to get the door locks... I really don't know. It is a bit of a mess and I hope to sort it out now. By the way, the insurance company has the old keys for the door locks.

Johan

>> Edited by Johan G on Thursday 16th January 12:21

>> Edited by Johan G on Thursday 16th January 12:24

JSG

2,238 posts

305 months

Sunday 19th January 2003
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On most S3s there is a single nut holding the door trim on near the mirror. It is on a bolt thread that goes through the door from the top of the armrest. On mine you could get a small socket on to it though the speaker hole. It is very fiddly though.

When I refitted the door panel to the V8 I used wingnuts instead (plenty of room) which makes the job much easier.

Cheers,
JSG

Johan G

Original Poster:

196 posts

283 months

Friday 28th February 2003
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After doing some research I found out that the following Ford models have the same type of door handles as the S:

Ford Capri Mk II
Ford Escort Mk II
Ford Granada Mk I
Ford Taunus Mk III (Cortina Mk III)

So first I went to look for other door handles complete with locks and keys at local scrap yards. I also found (through the swedish Ford Granada Club, lots of thanks to them!!!) that the lock cylinders can be rebuilt to fit another key.
I had a look at door handles from a Granada Mk I -75 and found that the keys were of a different lenght than my keys for my TVR. So the older Ford handles probably have this smaller size of keys/lock cylinders.

After that I decided to call some local locksmiths to see if they could rebuild my locks.
Found one who could do car locks and they said they needed to see the lock to be able to say if it could be rebuilt or not.
So after reading here (thanks to JSG for the info!!!) about how to get the door trim away from the door I could manage to get out the door handle too.
Went to the locksmith and they said that it was possible to rebuild the lock cylinder.
So now I have had both locks rebuilt and got everything back in place.

I did not use wingnuts after all since I found that it was pretty easy to get the original nuts back in place by using a small socket by hand. But wingnuts would have worked excellent too.

Think I'll celebrate this with a few pints this weekend!

Cheers,
Johan

M@H

11,298 posts

294 months

Friday 28th February 2003
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I rebuilt a boot lock on the Porsche as it has been replaced, the key lost, and a wierd cable release mechanisn installed in its place (much like the S) instead. Basically to re-build the lock for a different key, you need to get the barrel out of the lock by removing the back bit that actually moves the lock (round metal disc with a pin sticking out of it) and draw the key mechanism out of the front of the lock.

You will then see lost of little (copper ususally) plates that move in and out on tiny springs down either saide of the barrel.. from memory there are about 10-12

You now need the paitence of a saint and a cup of tea... get the new key, slide it into the barrel and see which copper plates are left "pulled" into the centre of the barrel, the rest will be sticking out. (the ones sticking out slot into a groove in the lock tube and stop the barrel rotating in thetube and unlocking the car) remove the ones that are sticking out, and then by a process of trial and error, swap them around with each other until you've got all of them "pulled" in when the key is inserted..(long-nosed pliers worked well for me) at this point the barrel would spin in the lock tube if slid back inside. I ended up with one plate that I couldn't get right so in the end I left it out as there were still 4-5 others on that side coded to the key.. all in all it took about 20 minutes to get the plates right. Then simply screw the metal disc back onto the bottom to locate the barrel and tube back together, and re-assemble back into the handle..

Cheers
matt.