Lots about Locks

Some time ago I disassembled the locks, which were completely frozen. The only thing that I couldn't manages to get apart was the barrel. So I visited this locksmith shop near my house (West Coast Locksmiths). I wanted them to remove them. I've learned that the best way to explain what you're up to is to carry a photo of the van with me. That's what I did here. When I walked in I showed the photo to Bill and Jason. Of course, they wanted to know what it was, so I explained that it was a Morris J Van. Then, for good measure I added: "It's the same as the Reactine van...." Bill replied, "He (referring to Jason) made keys for it...." Now, what are the odds of this? I'm in a city of 2 million; there's one functional J Van in whole continent and I happen to find the one guy who has prior experience working with them. Of course the Reactine van locks were not original. I'm going to post their pictrure hopefully next week.

In any event, they managed to remove the barrels and even made me a key! I then spent part of the weekend welding the cracks in the locks together with epoxy. Turned out good. I'm going to use the lock that was formerly on the NS on the OS and vice-versa because the old OS is in better shape and, by doing this, I can turn the old NS one around and hide the obvious crack against the plastic spacer. To this end I ordered two spacers made form this company in Thailand (see photo above): http://www.gasketstogo.com/ . Regarding the locks...I don't have a good photo of it before it was disassembled, but the locked were not handed corrected? The OS one was simply turned around to that the protuberance that would otherwise would have accepted the keys was now pointed inward through the door? I'm 99 percent sure I'm right. The only thing that causes me doubt is that if this is done the holes in the plate that fit on the outside that the screws would otherwise terminate in are too big (see middle photo above), meaning the plate is held in place by the rivets on the top and bottom