door latch mystery

[lurtch]

Hello All,

     In the process of re-keying my 230SL doors I ran into an unusual problem. The new key would still not unlock the passenger side door. Digging a little deeper, I discovered that at some point in time a barbarian "mechanic" appears to have punched a hole
through the latch casting in order to break off the flipper lever that engages the bosses on key cylinder. GO FIGURE.

I was able to obtain another latch assembly pretty easily on eBay, but had to cough up $150 to get it.

Regards,

Larry in CA

[Pawel66]

I think starting this hole in the back of the door/latch casting at a proper angle to aim and hit the lever they wanted to break off was a difficult and a very sphisticated task...