A customer in Staines called one evening because the side door would no longer unlock and asked me to see what could be done.
If I had known at the beginning how stubborn this one was going to be, I might have approached it with slightly less optimism.
The door was completely jammed. It had a British Standard 3-star cylinder, there was virtually no useful movement in the door and the spindle inside the gearbox had broken into pieces. It took around an hour to get the door open.
With the customer’s permission, I made a controlled access opening in line with the handle furniture so I could reach the failed gearbox internally. The opening was kept as small as possible and was covered again by the handles once everything was reassembled.
The underlying reason for the failure was poor alignment. The door had become increasingly difficult to operate, more and more force had been used on the handles and eventually the weakest internal part — in this case the gearbox spindle — gave way.
Fortunately, I had the correct replacement gearbox in van stock. I fitted it during the same visit and then carried out the door adjustments that should prevent the new mechanism being put under the same strain.
Once everything was aligned and tested, the side door was opening, closing and locking normally again.
