Rambling around in my garage one afternoon I found a new tube of graphite powder, so what better time to make the rounds on my 3 Q45's and service the lock cylinders? I clipped the tip off the tube, inserted it into the perfectly functioning ignition cylinder on my '94 Q45a and gave it a little squeeze.
Because graphite powder is almost weightless, and I couldn't see the tip of the tube, there was no way to tell how much powder I applied. So then I inserted the key and WHAT? It stopped about 1/4 inch short and wouldn't go in any further. So great! I just made a good cylinder worse!
Obviously, I applied too much powder, and when I inserted the key it packed the excess powder into the base of the ignition switch. So how to get it out?
Fortunately, I am not the tidiest car owner, and there in the floorboard was one of the small. plastic "swizzle sticks" used to stir coffee. This was small enough to go in the lock cylinder, and stiff enough to hold up. So I held it into the mouth of my shop vac and constricted the flow with my hand so the swizzle stick would suck. After working the swizzle stick around in the base of the lock cylinder, the excess graphite was gone, and my lock worked fine.
Maybe next time I'll apply to the key then insert.
Jim
Too much graphite will jam lock cylinders - solution
Re: (Q451990)
A can of compressed air would work also{like the ones sold to clean computers,etc}
Always use only 1 puff of the graphite to avoid future problems-it only takes a tiny amount to lubricate the locks!
Always use only 1 puff of the graphite to avoid future problems-it only takes a tiny amount to lubricate the locks!
Re: Too much graphite will jam lock cylinders - solution (jjbuzzman)
I don't think I ever used the key to unlock, always used the key fob
Re: Too much graphite will jam lock cylinders - solution (Sanger)
Might want to occasionally use the key to exercise the internal moving parts of the lock.