'71 Sovereign KT Door Lock Refurbishestoration

[StingrayL82]

Well, I decided today that I was sick of looking at that peeling chrome finish on our KT door lock, so I took everything apart, pulled out the Dremel and, using 120 grit sandpaper, got everything nice and cleaned up. The problem is that 39 years of weather pitted some areas, so I smoothed them down as much as possible and painted the door latch assembly with Krylon metallic. I followed that with a couple coats of Krylon clearcoat. The result is spectacular, compared to what it looked like this morning.

The only mistake I made was not taking the tiny spring out first, before pulling out the lock plunger, resulting in a spring that got almost FUBAR'd. Lucky for me, I used some crewchief ingenuity. I grabbed some baling wire, a pair of pliers, a pair of needlenosed pliers and proceeded to rewind the spring to its almost original condition. It worked like a charm. A little Parbond around the latch assembly and I have a door lock that looks good again. I didn't really care for the chromed look anyway.

I'll take a pic tomorrow and post it, after I clean up the dried Parbond.

[StingrayL82]

Okay, as promised, here is a pic of the final product. It's not brand new but, given what it looked like before (sorry, no pics of that), this is infinitely better and acceptable to me.

[Silverhobby]

I have a 71 Caravel and I believe I could supply a before picture of that lock set. It really looks good, thanks for sharing.

[StingrayL82]

Originally Posted by Silverhobby

I have a 71 Caravel and I believe I could supply a before picture of that lock set. It really looks good, thanks for sharing.

Thank you. The picture doesn't do it justice, however. The one thing I did notice, is that the latch housing seems to be made of aluminum, and not pot metal, as has been speculated. When I put the buffing wheel on it, it polished up pretty nicely. The only reason I painted it was because there were certain areas I couldn't reach with the Dremel.