Keys....

[114015]

Hello George,

Well, the truth of the story of the tumbler barrels is: they are not designed to (be disassembled). 
Rather these were designed to be replaced by a new unit (e.g. new door handle with tumber barrel).

When new the five little brass lock pins (for the old style sytem until 1967) were pressed in together with their little coil springs into the tumbler barrel and fastened/punched/sealed with a kind of hammer stroke.
You can see this stoke on the top surface of the diecast tumbler barrel after cleaning the barrel with some detergent/gasoline etc.
 In old tumber barrel assemblies these often break open themselves and the lock pins and springs can/will fall out ... depending on the remaining amount of grease or dirt....
Theoretically you can break this kind of "seal" and replace/rearrange the lock pins but it is a bit tricky.

But this doesn't help you at all if you don't have the correct lock pins for your new (or desired) key. You "could" theoretically fabricate yourself one out of a couple of donor parts but still those won't be like new as these tumbler assemblies wear out (heavily) with the years/decades/half centuries...

Perhaps a good (and specialized) locksmith can help further.

Good luck and keep us updated

Achim
(has not had much luck with his used lock assemblies)

[George Des]

Achim,

Thanks for the reply. I've got a 1967 230SL. I went to a locksmith yesterday with my gas cap and trunk lock expecting I would be able to at least get them on a common key with the door locks. What we found out is the key profiles were all different so we hit a dead end immediately. When I got home I played around with the keys a bit and found that the key profile for the gas cap--a replacement- and the glove box are exactly alike even though the gas cap was provided new with a key that has a rectangular head. Exploring further, I recalled that I had replaced the trunk lock some years back because the attaching bolts were torqued off when I removed it for the restoration. Fortunately, I kept the old lock and lo and behold, the glove box lock and the old trunk lock use a common key. I removed the barrel from the old trunk lock assembly and replaced the barrel in the "new' trunk lock housing. So now, I'm down to 4 keys--one for the ignition, one for the door locks, one for the gas cap and one that operates the glove box and trunk. If I can figure out how to re-pin the gas cap--it uses the same key profile as the trunk and glove box--I can get this down to three keys and I'd be happy

[114015]

Yes George,

That's correct. Well observed. And congratulations to your solution so far with changing (back) the tumlber barrel of the trunk lock.

By the way, the shape of the key head (round or square) does only indicate where it goes (K = Kofferrraum & Handschuhfach, trunk & glove comparment and T = Türen & Tank, doors & tank) but the keys themselves are more or less identical. This indicates that a given door key, let's say TA 046 would be able to unlock a trunk with the number KA 046 and so on.

As to your problem, yes, that is the biggest challenge, to find the correct lock pins (tumbler pins, "Zuhaltungen" says Valeo (= succeeding company of YMOS) to them).

It is not easy to get these parts since those are lock items and thus sensitive parts ....

There are (MB-)specialised locksmiths who can do that, e.g. like the "Sleutelprof Luke"
http://www.keyprof.com/index.php
http://www.keyprof.com/en.index.php
in Holland
but there are certainly others.

At least that's the way I want to approach this; I haven't done yet.

Best,
Achim

[tel76]

With regard to the boot barrel is it possible to remove the chrome outer shell (the part that holds the tumblers) so that it can be re-chromed,on my vehicle the chrome has worn away with use.

[George Des]

Eric,

I'm trying to figure that out as well. I'd like to exchange the barrels and use the chrome piece that I got with my newer lock assembly for the very same reason. I played around with these this morning and gave up after a while. Did not want to break anything!  I've got an e-mail into Joe Alexander since he has worked with these locks. Hopefully the two can be separated so the barrels can be changed out.

George

[114015]

With regard to the boot barrel is it possible to remove the chrome outer shell (the part that holds the tumblers) so that it can be re-chromed,on my vehicle the chrome has worn away with use.

Dear Eric, George,

Yes, that is possible.
I've already done that with one of my door handles. Pretty decent outcome.
However, this effort depends on the condition of the part; consider please it's zinc diecasting.
If the part is too heavily coroded/pitted, it will not come out nicely from the rechroming process.

Yes, it is easily possible to mix the parts from different (trunk lock) units.

Good luck!

Achim
(keeps original trunk lock assembly together with a few exchange parts)