fitting a yale lock... little tweaks?

I had to get another barrel for this yale type lock, which I did.

Put everything back together and the key turns only with great difficulty.

I chiseled away some wood to refit the lock before doing all this, just let in into the door a couple of mm because the tongue wasn't going into the receiver bit, whatever it's called.

Just went around the edge there, these things, this one anyway, doesn't have a flat surface to mate with the door but the edge of the 'wall' meets the door. So it meets it all around like a rectangle. Well I dug that out a it so's it could fit in deeper.

That's all I did.

I've cut some of the end off that long shaft thing that sticks out from the barrel and goes into the body to turn it, thinking maybe that was the problem, but it wasn't.

It seems that turning the key is forcing the tongue of the lock upwards and it is rubbing along the top there..

If I take everything off and try them then it all works perfectly. It is something to do with how they're fitted on the door.

I notice if I pull the back end of the body - the bit at the hinge end of the thing - up away from the door a bit then everything moves easy. A bit? Well it's 5mm or more gap I get there.

So that looks like the problem is something about the lock not being at 90 degrees to the shaft of the key part or somesuch.

But as it is it's flat with the door, it's in the same plane as the door. It is not canted in any way. It is canting it that brings it to where it works.

What is it I don't know about fitting yale locks here? Actually it is not a Yale but some old Aussie brand and the barrel was made by our friendly chinese workers.

You will probably find that the metal is not quite manufactured to the exact measurements that it should be. it wouldn't be the first time that I've had to dig out my small flat and/or round file and shave a little off a lock here and there to make it work better in some of the renos we did. A liberal squirt of oil in the right place can work wonders too.

Stewie