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1993 9000 Driver door Stainless Steel Keyhole

904 views 5 replies 4 participants last post by  SAAB Snob 
#1 ·
Yesterday I went to unlock my Driver door and when I pulled the key out, so did the circular stainless steel (perhaps aluminum) keyhole thingy that has the slot for the key carved out. On the inside of this circular keyhole slot thingy is a similarly shaped piece of rubber backing. I would like to know how to re-attach this circular thingy as without it, there lies exposed an unsightly keyhole, that still works mind you, but is a rather dark hole as compared with having a finished look on the door handle. Would superglue or JB Weld work for this or is there another "proper" way to re-attach this circular keyhole cover with a slot thingy??

I've seen other posts referring to a keyhole covers that are black being manually taken off in the event the auto-door lock is not working properly, thus allowing the driver to enter-exit by manually unlocking the door with the key itself, like I do, but that is not the issue for me as I have no Auto-Door locks as my car is a 1993 and I always have had to manually unlock the doors, even though they are electronically bridged such that when I use the key, the other doors "automatically" open as well.

SAAB Snob
 
#2 ·
Upon closer inspection, I noticed a tiny spring that lies on the now present surface of my door lock. I thought that since I still have the Circular Stainless steel/aluminum face, all I would have to do is glue it back to the surface. WRONG!! Looking at the passenger door handle lock, the stainless steel/aluminum circular face with a slot for the key actually has a little door that slides across the slot when you take out the key to keep debris from lodging itself inside the lock, obviously. So, I wonder if I could get a replacement circular face thingy from SAAB. Any clue??:roll:
 
#3 ·
The same thing happened to me about a month ago. I got a replacement lock cylinder and swapped the whole thing over. It was about ÂŁ75 from the Saab dealer who used the chassis number to match it to the right key.

I guess you could liberate one from a scrap dealer if he's got they key, but none of the local ones had keys when I was looking
 
#4 ·
When that came off on mine, I just shoved it back on. It pops off every couple of months, and I just press it back on.

I don't have a little door though, as best as I can tell...it's just a silver thing, with a hole in it, that kind of covers the lock hole.
 
#5 ·
h.as rainbird said get a replacement barrel(it's called a barrel) from your super friendly saab dealer or go to the wreckewr and have a lock smith recode the wafers in the barrel to match your key.rainbird's cost 75 pounds(i'm in australia and don't have a pound symbol-only a $ symbol- on my keyboard).a second hand barrel and recoding may cost half that.check it out.love that car.cheers
 
#6 ·
Hello Gents!!

I took it upon myself to go ahead with the reparation of the stainless steel keyhole thingy. What I found upon further inspection was that the tiny stainless steel slot door was still inside the cylinder as was the tiny spring (which was barely visible caked in debris) around a very small post. All I had in hand was the actual outside stainless steel cylinder shaped thingy with the slot in it and I knew I had to somehow affix it to the cylinder lock itself. Otherwise the Dealership would have charged $100 for a replacement cylinder with a lock and that would have meant I would have had to walk around with two keys, one for each door, not an option I wanted to settle with.

So, I first had to take off the upolstery inside of the driver door with the handle on it etc. Having one of the upolstry bars was very helpful (it is bent slightly at the end with what looks to be end of a hammer curled upwards-know what I mean?) as there are two plastic tabs that affix the inner door to the door itself, one at 3 o'clock underneath the door lining and another at around 8 o,clock in proximity to the door lights underneath. You just pop those out make sure not to loose them and the rest of the bolts. I used duct tape to tape every bolt next to where I found it!! The rest of the info taking the inside portion of the door off is pretty much covered in the forums, but essentially you need the tork screwdriver that should be in your trunk, you'll need 2 of the 3 sizes. Pop off the tabs covering the tork bolts and start unscrewing. I left the top one of the door handle in to take out last. There is another bolt behind the mirror adjuster too that needs to be taken out. The mirror adjuster is tricky though. You need to take out the foam surrounding the mirror changer after you place the switch in the middle position. Take off the mirror adjuster knob by pulling it straight out as well as the changer lever. Then, take a flat blade screwdriver and use it to push a little tab to the left side of the mirror changer lever to unlock the whole mirror changer. The wires connecting to this were easy to unlatch.

Once I got off the door upolstry, I placed that to the side. Next was trying to find a way to take out the door lock itself from the door handle. Inside the door in the area of the locking mechanism is a protective barrier of some sort. This plastic barrier thingy also has a slot in it to hold the wire connecting to the locks central locking. I was unable to get to the lock on the handle without removing it, done by removing the two nuts located on the inner edge of the door when you open the door. Once done, I unbolted the handle itself, two obvious bolts inside the door. The trick here was to realize the handles function when pulled upon inside the door such that when you take it out, you know how to put it back in!! Well, when you pull on the handle, inside the door the handle is connected to a latch that, when pulled, pulls towards the handle. Seems obvious, but the latch must be on the inside of the lever that unlocks the door, so when you take out the handle, be sure to eyeball the positioning of this lever/latch when reattaching the handle. Also, the lock itself is connected to a wire connecting to the central locking and it has a little teardrop shaped bead (sort of looks like a very miniature tow jack) which attaches to the door lock hangar tabs that you see in the door (you know, the door locks that you press manually??) and would use if you didn't have central locking. This bead needs to be gently prised away from this locking hangar in order to take the handle of the door out. The wire attached to the lock itself doesn't allow you much room to operate with and I didn't want to attempt disconnecting it, so I had a little table handy with a vice at the same level as the door handle.

Once the handle was out, yet still connected via the central locking wire!, in order to get the locking cylinder out, there are two more screws that need to be removed. Then I placed the cylider in the vice and sprayed it with WD40 and cleaned it with a napkin and scratch awl. To my surprise@!@, the tiny spring was still in the cylinder, this much I was aware of whilst driving without the stainless steel cylinder cover with a slot thingy as it was clearly visible, which I am in the process of repairing BTW!, but also lodged in there was the post around which the tiny spring wraps, the purpose of which is to pop up the little slot cover whenever you take out your key! Furthermore, the tiny stainless steel slot door was in there too!!! The WD40 helped dislodge the obvious debris, without which the the slot door, spring and post would have immediately popped out. I know this because once I had it all cleaned up being able to see where the spring and its post slid into place (left side of slot most towards the outside away from the slot), the spring and the slot door popped out repetitively at each attempt of loading the slot door. More on this later!

So now I have the lock in the vice, the innards of the lock itslef (ie-slot door and the spring on its post that has its own slot within the cylinder). My first objective here was to reshape the outer stainless steel cylider cover with a slot thingy as the 4 indentations which originally served to affix this thingy to the cylinder had lost its shape after 15 years!! Go Figure!! After deducting that using a scratchawl and hammer to re-attach this thingy would have cause more damage than good as an errant hit could chip paint or dameage the lock itself. Besides, what would have used to hold the thingy in place?? So I took a pair of needlenose pliers and in each of the pre-determined obvious indents that originally served to hold the thingy in place, I prised the lip of the cylinder thingy inwards. This was not enough to keep it in place however. So I used a medium sized pair of vice grips and adjusted the width of them to the width of the cylider cover thingy, and then some, just so that when I went to close them diametrically opposite where each fo the 4 indents are they just slightly ent the cylinder inwards just enough so that it could still fit around the locking cyclinder, but yet required help from a hammer tap to get it affixed.

This had to wait though because this cylinder cover thingy is waht keep the slot cover door in place!! Let get to that now.....

Very touchy this is!!!

The first thing you have to do is get the spring in place which means you have to have small needle nose pliers to place this spring and its post in a slot of its own. Ok, once this is in place, the spring should be sticking out at a 45 or so degree angle towards the center of the keyhole slot such that when you place the outer pins of the slot door in its slots, also placed into place with small needlenose pliers, you carefully push aginst this spring with the slot cover door and slide the slot door into its slots closest to the KeySlot. If you let go now, the spring will pop the slot door out...so the question is how does one get the cylinder cover thingy back on while keeping the slot door closed and the spring wound without its loosing its foothold in the slots???? Patience!!!!

I found it easiest to already have the re-shaped cylinder cover thingy on my key first before attempting the below such that it is ready when you need it, as mentioned below.

Once you get the slot in its place after carefully pressing it into place with the pliers gently engaging the spring, you now have to hold this in place such that you can get the cylinder cover thingy in place which serves to keep this spring loaded and the slot door cover from being popped out of its slot by the tiny spring. Holding the slot door in place with the small pliers with one hand and a scratch awl in the other, touch the scratch awl to the slot door cover in such a way that it stays put, springs and all. It WILL take you several attempts to get this right. Then holding the scratch awl at a horizontal level with the cylinder while at the same time keeping slot door in place, use you other hand to insert the key that already should have the reshaped cylinder cover thingy with the key through it. Since it essential to use the key to replace the scratch awl function of keeping the slot door loaded such that it doesn't pop out, carefully press the side of the key against the slot door cover at an angle towards the spring side and, since the reshaped cylinder thingy is very close to the end of the key, make a move to jam it on quickly!! As you'll notice, it will take you more than one try to get this right as you will only realize you got it right if the slot door smoothly returns to position once you take the key back out of the door lock. Anything other than this means that the slot hole cover popped out of its slot because the move to push the cylinder cover thingy didn't ahppen quick enough, or when you held the key to keep the door loaded against the spring you used too much pressure etc.....

I hope this helps!!

SAAB Snob
 
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