Post by CrazyBrit on May 23, 2020 20:54:53 GMT -8
A few weeks ago, with the words of a prominent forum member in my head – “people with multiple keys for their Volkswagens are just lazy” - I set about trying to reduce my four bus keys to one. All of the handles on my bus are reproductions from the early 2000's, the originals having been baked beyond redemption in the Aussie sun. They were a pitted horrible mess, so I binned them and replaced them with repop’s, before I knew better. Even back then, there were at least two keys, although any key (or screwdriver) may have opened some of the doors.
So, I started with the side cargo door, because the handle was easiest to remove. I soon discovered that my repro handle does not come apart to allow me to swap the tumblers like you can in an original VW lock. The cargo door locking mechanism has never worked very well on this bus, so I thought, whilst I have the handle off I’ll take a look at it. I undid the four screws holding it in position and “kaboom”, there were pieces all over the floor. Bugger.
I carefully picked up all of the pieces, realised that it was pretty worn and had seen better days. The rivets holding these units together act as guides for the sliders that activate the vertical locking bars inside of the door, which have never really moved properly on my bus. My rivets were bent and loose, and had evidently been drilled out in the past, hence the reason the thing fell apart. Most of the springs were missing. I spent several hours trying to get this thing to work properly before giving up and heading to thesamba.com classifieds. I found an NOS latch for a late fifties bus in Poland. $80 USD plus courier fees later and it was on it’s way. I could have saved a few bucks and bought used, but used can also be worn out, modified and repaired crap too. NOS is the way to go, isn’t it???
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Fast forward two weeks, and my nice shiny NOS latch was in my hands. It had a bit of pitting from storage, and a tiny crack in the square section where the lock goes. Nothing to worry about, it’s patina. I fitted it to my bus and it worked, although the door handle sat at a funny angle when closed. It was a touch stiff, but nothing serious so I worked the handle a few times after adding some light machine oil where I could. Then it suddenly spun past where it should have stopped and the latch no longer engaged. I tried again, only now it went all of the way around. Bugger.
So today, I set about drilling the rivets out of the back, and this is what I found inside.
We all complain about modern garbage manufactured in certain Far Eastern countries, but this is original German VW, or BUM to be exact! The main latching mechanism is pot metal and in this case, very poor quality pot metal. I tried welding it, but it fizzled away into pools of tin. Useless.
Fortunately, the central piece that normally fails on these was actually good on my original lock, although the design was very slightly different. So I was able to salvage the NOS lock, with it’s new springs and good rivets, and build a fairly good lock up from what I had left. I then spot welded the backs of the rivets to avoid the mechanism exploding like the old one next time I take it off. It works better than my original latch, but not as well as I would like it to in an ideal World. Although I applied machine oil throughout as I reassembled it, it is a bit stiff. For what I paid for it with shipping, and bearing in mind that it is technically new (even if it is 60 years old) , it should be perfect, but isn’t that just life in 2020?
Oh, and yes, I still have four keys with four different locks. The moral of the story, if it isn’t totally broken…… Be lazy and don’t fix it!
So, I started with the side cargo door, because the handle was easiest to remove. I soon discovered that my repro handle does not come apart to allow me to swap the tumblers like you can in an original VW lock. The cargo door locking mechanism has never worked very well on this bus, so I thought, whilst I have the handle off I’ll take a look at it. I undid the four screws holding it in position and “kaboom”, there were pieces all over the floor. Bugger.
I carefully picked up all of the pieces, realised that it was pretty worn and had seen better days. The rivets holding these units together act as guides for the sliders that activate the vertical locking bars inside of the door, which have never really moved properly on my bus. My rivets were bent and loose, and had evidently been drilled out in the past, hence the reason the thing fell apart. Most of the springs were missing. I spent several hours trying to get this thing to work properly before giving up and heading to thesamba.com classifieds. I found an NOS latch for a late fifties bus in Poland. $80 USD plus courier fees later and it was on it’s way. I could have saved a few bucks and bought used, but used can also be worn out, modified and repaired crap too. NOS is the way to go, isn’t it???
[img src="
Fast forward two weeks, and my nice shiny NOS latch was in my hands. It had a bit of pitting from storage, and a tiny crack in the square section where the lock goes. Nothing to worry about, it’s patina. I fitted it to my bus and it worked, although the door handle sat at a funny angle when closed. It was a touch stiff, but nothing serious so I worked the handle a few times after adding some light machine oil where I could. Then it suddenly spun past where it should have stopped and the latch no longer engaged. I tried again, only now it went all of the way around. Bugger.
So today, I set about drilling the rivets out of the back, and this is what I found inside.
We all complain about modern garbage manufactured in certain Far Eastern countries, but this is original German VW, or BUM to be exact! The main latching mechanism is pot metal and in this case, very poor quality pot metal. I tried welding it, but it fizzled away into pools of tin. Useless.
Fortunately, the central piece that normally fails on these was actually good on my original lock, although the design was very slightly different. So I was able to salvage the NOS lock, with it’s new springs and good rivets, and build a fairly good lock up from what I had left. I then spot welded the backs of the rivets to avoid the mechanism exploding like the old one next time I take it off. It works better than my original latch, but not as well as I would like it to in an ideal World. Although I applied machine oil throughout as I reassembled it, it is a bit stiff. For what I paid for it with shipping, and bearing in mind that it is technically new (even if it is 60 years old) , it should be perfect, but isn’t that just life in 2020?
Oh, and yes, I still have four keys with four different locks. The moral of the story, if it isn’t totally broken…… Be lazy and don’t fix it!