Broken lock or wrong lock?
02-18-05, 06:55 PM
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Broken lock or wrong lock?
Hi, all!
My key doesn't fit into my bicycle lock anymore.
I live in NYC and I have a New York Chain with Kryptonite EV Disc Lock (picture). It worked fine last year. When the colder weather came, I stopped riding for a month, and then finally decided to remove the lock and the chain from the bicycle rack outside my school for the winter. Well, the key didn't fit into the hole in the lock. I thought maybe the lock was frozen through, so I decided to wait until the spring to sort things out. That time has come.
The key still doesn't fit into the lock. The key is tubular and the hole is tubular, but the inner cylindrical post in the center of the hole of the lock has somehow grown to a size just a tad larger than the cylindrical hole in the center of the key. The key just doesn't go in into its hole, it's useless to push it through - the key is too small. The problem is not with they key though, since I tried my backup key and it doesn't fit either. I even suspected that maybe this is not my lock, maybe someone stole mine and someone else hanged another lock of another type in the same place, but how could that be? The lock is in the exact same spot I left it in, the chain wrapped around the rack the same way I always wrapped it. The lock itself looks exactly like the one I had, except it's missing the transperent plastic keyhole cover and some of the writing is scratched off. No one has touched it but me for the past couple of months. It was a bit rusted after the winter, so I tried filling it up with WD-40, but that didn't help either. I don't know of any other Kryptonite locks that look exactly like this model except for having larger keys. My only theory is that someone broke off the plastic cover and smashed the mechanism several times with a hammer, thus flattening the central post.
Could this happen? Are there different Kryptonite locks that look exactly the same? Will this lock stay in its place now forever? This is just mindboggling. What would you suggest I should do?
My key doesn't fit into my bicycle lock anymore.
I live in NYC and I have a New York Chain with Kryptonite EV Disc Lock (picture). It worked fine last year. When the colder weather came, I stopped riding for a month, and then finally decided to remove the lock and the chain from the bicycle rack outside my school for the winter. Well, the key didn't fit into the hole in the lock. I thought maybe the lock was frozen through, so I decided to wait until the spring to sort things out. That time has come.
The key still doesn't fit into the lock. The key is tubular and the hole is tubular, but the inner cylindrical post in the center of the hole of the lock has somehow grown to a size just a tad larger than the cylindrical hole in the center of the key. The key just doesn't go in into its hole, it's useless to push it through - the key is too small. The problem is not with they key though, since I tried my backup key and it doesn't fit either. I even suspected that maybe this is not my lock, maybe someone stole mine and someone else hanged another lock of another type in the same place, but how could that be? The lock is in the exact same spot I left it in, the chain wrapped around the rack the same way I always wrapped it. The lock itself looks exactly like the one I had, except it's missing the transperent plastic keyhole cover and some of the writing is scratched off. No one has touched it but me for the past couple of months. It was a bit rusted after the winter, so I tried filling it up with WD-40, but that didn't help either. I don't know of any other Kryptonite locks that look exactly like this model except for having larger keys. My only theory is that someone broke off the plastic cover and smashed the mechanism several times with a hammer, thus flattening the central post.
Could this happen? Are there different Kryptonite locks that look exactly the same? Will this lock stay in its place now forever? This is just mindboggling. What would you suggest I should do?
02-18-05, 07:13 PM
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Someone might have tried to pick the lock with a pen and left it half opened.
The key has a little nib sticking out that stops it going in or out of the lock at any angle than 12 o'clock. You could try filing that down flat and then see if the key will go in the lock at any other angle than the normal position. If it does, turn the key back to the 12 o'clock position and remove it and then the lock might be fixed.
The key has a little nib sticking out that stops it going in or out of the lock at any angle than 12 o'clock. You could try filing that down flat and then see if the key will go in the lock at any other angle than the normal position. If it does, turn the key back to the 12 o'clock position and remove it and then the lock might be fixed.
02-18-05, 07:23 PM
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I don't think it's the little notch. The cylinder of the lock is aligned so that the identations for the notches on the inside and outside of the key's tube are together and at the 12 o'clock position. The weird thing is that the cylindrical post in the center of the keyhole has a diameter the same size as the key itself and slightly larger than the cylindrical hole in the center of the key. In other words the key won't fit on top of it, like a nut won't fit on a bolt of incorrect size, notches or no notches. Nudging the post around inside the lock proved ineffective, since it's diameter stayed the same.
