UPDATE:

TLDR; The answer to my question is – you don’t 😜.

Thanks to everyone that entertained my question. It seems that without drilling, it would require a seemingly impossible balancing and compression act to slide everything back in.

See more pictures and commentary below at https://lemmy.world/post/39906128/20917330.

----- ORIGINAL POST -----

How do I reassemble a Master Lock 140?

Black Friday was my excuse to finally get some lock picking tools. After trying an acrylic lock and a practice lock, I decided to go after one of the Master Lock 140s that I had laying around.

I was able to get it open with a single pick and then a rake.

Then I tried a comb. I went from “yay it’s turning”, to “oh, it’s really turning”, to “uh, oh, it’s still turning”. 🤣

Not really realizing what was happening until it was too late, I ended up removing the whole cylinder (is that what it’s called?) as pins fell out, without paying attention to which pin goes where.

The shackle wasn’t actually unlocked at that point, so I fiddle around inside the lock some more and fully unlocked everything.

I assume I inadvertently started the process to rekey the lock, but now what? How do I put everything back together again?

I know the pins are out of order, but I assume short key pins go with the taller parts of the key, so I’m thinking it’s something like 1+B, 2+A, 3+C, 4+D. I seems like 5 only fits into #6.

My main questions are: (1) Can I just shove everything, or do I have to worry about whatever it was inside the lock that actually unlocked the shackle? I don’t know if it has to be in a certain position or not.

(2) From using the CI practice lock, I assume the process is to put in the key pin, pointy end down, then driver pin, then spring. Is that right?

(3) Do I start from the back (i.e., #6), putting the pins in, pushing the spring down and using the lock body to keep the spring compressed?

(4) Related to (1), does the cylinder need to go in at a certain orientation (or avoid a certain orientation?

(5) Finally, what is the correct pin order if I want to keep using that same key? Was my guess correct, 1B, 2 A or C, 3 A or C, 4D?

  • RandomUser@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    6 days ago

    Probably not an easy repair. Could you use a thin shim to keep the springs and driver pins in the body, with the key pins in the bible? May need to have the bible at the right angle and most of the way pushed home. If the springs aren’t too strong, it may just work. - doubt you can break it much more.

    Alternatively, drill out the plugs in the body and tap the holes for grub screws, then you can repin it easily.

  • SlippiHUD@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    6 days ago

    I haven’t disassembled one of these in a while. I am unsure how you plan to get the springs and driver pins back in the Bible and then hold them in while reinserting the plug.

    I think it might be beyond repair.

    • SlippiHUD@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      6 days ago

      You could maybe hold the Bible upside down and see if the springs fit in without obstructing the hole and fit the key pins and driver pins in the plug. But I still don’t know how you’ll get that longer retaining pin back in.

    • thenetnetofthenet@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      6 days ago

      I think it might be beyond repair.

      yes, this seems to be the answer

      being the genius that I am 😁 , I imagined that I would just put the driver pin on top of the key pin, put the spring on top of that, and then compress everything as I slid the cylinder in. It’s obvious to me now how that is impossible, but it took me actually seeing it to understand. The picture on the left below shows how hilariously far off I was in my thinking.

      So I instead put the spring into the lock body, then balanced the driver pin on top of that, which is what you can see in the picture on the right. While putting all of the springs back in would be fairly easy (having not actually tried it of course!), that driver pin is barely hanging on there. I could probably do one, specifically that very first one, but I doubt you could manage to compress all of them and then slide in the cylinder.

      At least I am learning more about how everything works, and in the picture on the left below, I think I figured out which order the pins go, or at least got really close. I’m pretty sure there were only 4 key pins, assuming the fifth spring paired with the retaining pin.

      On the right pictures, you can see the inserted 6 pin comb that I used to create this fine piece of deconstruction. It seems like that pin sticking out at the far left (#6 in my original picture) could have been responsible for my problems. I guess one of my lessons learned is to know how many pins there are, and then use a comb with a matching number of pins or less.

      Let me know if there’s anything else to try, or if anyone wants a picture of something specific.

      FYI this specific lock came in a set of 4, the Master Lock 140Q, purchased in December 2016 from Amazon.

  • lfisk@infosec.exchange
    1·
    6 days ago

    @thenetnetofthenet Hee Hee Hee… Not seen one pulled apart like that😆

    Usually that last pin (6) is held in solid without a spring. They are or use to be assembled via the top pin side through holes in the lock body. Tiny brass caps are forced into the holes and then they are sanded flat to the body. Hard to see the caps at that point. Check out LockpickingDev’s video here for what the side looks like with the caps removed.

    https://youtu.be/vKusWIckVNY?t=319

    • thenetnetofthenet@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1·
      6 days ago

      Hee Hee Hee… Not seen one pulled apart like that😆

      haha! I’m glad to be a trailblazer for the community 😜

      I didn’t even know what I did was possible. I tried my best to find something online that showed how to rekey a 140, and while I saw many posts showing the 140 as someone’s first pick, I didn’t find any videos showing the disassembly process. It never occurred to me that I could pull out the whole cylinder like that, using just a comb.

      Thanks for that video link, it helped me understand a few things. I couldn’t see the caps on the side of my lock body, but I did see one on the front. I’ll take a picture later.

      • lfisk@infosec.exchange
        0·
        6 days ago

        @thenetnetofthenet Usually there is a larger cap for shackle latches on one side near top. I don’t have a 140… but image of an old G. C. W & Co. padlock that shows caps. Pretty much all brass padlocks with just a core fit into the body like that are built this way🤷‍♂️

        This is a four pin core, the fifth pin is for retaining the core and maybe limiting rotation.

        It also looks like Master used a 5 pin core on your lock but didn’t populate the 5th hole🙄