Quote:
Originally Posted by vstech
I use the phone book magnets cut into circles. place one on the drivers lock before water gets in the lock... no water, no problem. the magnet keeps freezing rain/dew/etc from collecting on the keyhole...
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I was thinking along the same lines. Instead of fixing the problem after the fact, why not prevent it from happening in the first place? I was going to make a velcro-ed rubber band (bicycle inner tube) strap to cover the key hole that can slide back and forth to keep water out and allow easy key access. I have not tried my idea yet. I will try your idea- seems easier to fabricate.
I had a couple of incidents of frozen locks alreadu this year. One time I was able to use a hair dryer, the other time (no hair dryer) and got in via passenger door which luckily did not freeze.
As I recall from taking apart door lock tumblers, there is an o-ring in there to keep water out. Locks that are very freeze prone may have a worn o-ring. I am not going to take the lock apart now to see if the o-ring is bad, not sure if a replacement is even available.
Another idea (yet to be tried) is to make a key insert with a nichrome heater that is powered by your cell phone battery. The heated key insert will have an LED to show when it's powered and is kept in the wallet all winter. When needed, insert key in frozen lock, take cell phone battery out, make contact with key so LED illuminates, and wait a minute or 2 for tumbler to thaw, insert real key to get in.
edit: It's probably easier to heat the lock with the car battery. But that only works on a car that has the mod whereas the heated universal key insert would work in any lock.