The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Doors School me on door locks

I'm restoring a 51 and have replaced the door latches, relays, locks and handles. There is a key lock on passenger door only. It is my understanding that when you move the inside door handle forward it locks the door and the outside handle cannot open the door. This does not seem to be the case for me. I can use the key to lock the passenger door, but because I can't lock the drivers door I basically can't lock the cab. Any help would be appreciated.

Also, even with all this new hardware, the outside door handles still droop. Any suggestions as to why.

Jim

The procedure to lock the older style of doors that only had a key lock on one side, usually the passenger side, is to lock the drivers door from the inside, slide across the seat and lock the passenger door from the outside with the key.
An alternate method is for the driver to exit the vehicle, walk around, opening the passenger door for the lady to exit, then the driver reaches across the seat to lock the drivers door. Of course the lady could do that while the husband (gentleman) was walking around the vehicle to open the ladies door... Don't hold your breath on that one, you'll turn blue.
The general purpose of only having a keyed lock on the passenger side was for the "gentleman" to open the door for the lady, she in turn would reach across and un-lock the drivers door.
GM doors generally had the lock built into the handle in lieu of the door. In many cases a right hand locking door handle could be used on a left hand door.

I can't comment on the repop latch and handle hardware, but it's possible that the square on the end of the handles has a loose fit in the latch. There's also a spring in the latch that returns the handle to horizontal, but that spring may be weak in your latches.

As far as locking with the inside handle, are you saying that doesn't work on your latches, (either side), or are you just not able to use the procedure that Wm L describes? There's an adjustment procedure for the inside handles that you may need to redo. The bolts holding the remote assembly are slotted for adjustment.

As a general rule, the older vehicles that only have a keyed lock on one door the door ( s) have to be locked in the following manner.
The door without a keyed lock has to be locked from the inside by use of the interior handle being moved to the locked position.
The door can not be locked with the door open and the inner handle moved to the lock position. The door has to be in the closed position for the inner handle to engage the lock feature.
The door with a lock in the handle actually has two locks. The inner handle engages the inner lock which can not be unlocked via the key. If the outer lock in the handle is locked with the key, as a rule the inner handle will open the door from the inside only, the outer handle will remain locked.
The problem with the older vehicle locking systems is that people confuse then with modern, mid '60's and later locking systems that were designed for creature comfort and high security. Wm.

Droopy door handles are a vexing issue for 47-51 trucks. Droop usually is a result of wear in the mechanism, so I'm surprised that new hardware didn't fix your problem. I suppose you could heat the square shaft and add a slight twist to it to make the handles horizontal again. I solved mine by swapping to 52-54 pushbutton style doors, haha!

The inside handle mechanism is adjustable if it isn't working correctly. The mount has slotted holes.

Thanks for the reply's. I do understand the concept of the Gentlemen and the Lady with the passenger door only key lock. My problem is that moving the inside handle forward does not keep the outer handle from opening the door. I have played around with the adjustment using the slots on the relay, but could still not get things to work properly. When you push them forward they snap into the detent but it just doesn't seem to hold. So my understanding of the concept is correct, I guess I need to play around with the adjustments some more.

(By the way I have been married 37 years and I still open the passenger door for my wife when we go out, just something I think a guy should do)

As to the drooping handles I think the square end is loose fitting into the latch as mentioned above. I had thought of twisting the shaft but was hoping for a simpler solution. I must say that I have been disappointed in the quality of many of the reproduction parts I have purchased. Many of them need quite a bit of tweeking to get to fit / work properly. But then I tend to be a little anal on stuff like that.........

Thanks again for the help.