A customer in Molesey got in touch because the front door was becoming more and more difficult to lock and unlock.
Once on site, I tested it and confirmed an intermittent fault. I quoted for the repair and the customer decided to go ahead, which turned out to be a very good decision. With the multipoint mechanism removed from the door and the gearbox opened up, the top spindle was basically in pieces. The only thing keeping it together was about 20 years’ worth of hardened Vaseline.
It was the sort of fault that could have left them locked in or locked out at any time. As soon as I removed the spindle for inspection, it came apart completely.
Because the customer wasn’t using the mechanism in its auto-latching configuration, I tried swapping the bottom spindle into the damaged position to save them the cost of a replacement. On some versions of this exact model the spindles are interchangeable; on others they aren’t. Why make it simple? 😆
This one wasn’t having it, so I fitted a replacement from van stock, made a few alignment tweaks and tested everything properly. The door was back to working as it should.
