First time post - Figured I'd go big.

New to me 95' E320. Ignition and door locks use different keys. I put the ignition key in the door lock, it turned about 45 degrees and is now stuck. Naturally, it's my only ignition key. The key moves from about 35 to 45 degrees. Searched the site for a remedy and as recommended:

1. Tried WD40 - Fail
2. Tried tried vibrating my hand as fast as an electric toothbrush... because I don't have an electric toothbrush - Fail
3. Tried removing cylinder - Fail
4. Took off door panel to continue to trying to remove cylinder - Fail

The cylinder is loose but won't come out. Is the key position preventing the lock from coming out?

Luckily the car is parked on black asphalt in a parking lot with no shade and it was only 92* today

 

Lock is out! - I went out early this morning, simply repeated the same jiggling/pulling and it came out. I think turning the lock to get the key position from 45 to 60 degrees may have been the solution. Yesterday, I was not thinking of this which I had read somewhere - that or drop in temperature (outside air this morning and/or my internal temp gauge) factored in.

Next issue is removing these roll pins. I saw a write up on this, and the last person simply hammered them out. Mine can only be accessed from one side. I'm guessing they are screwed in, but I can't figure out what kind of tool is needed. It would be a micro allen or torx bit that I don't have.

 

so the whole lock assembly came out? By pulling on it?

That looks perhaps a small allen key would take that out, but man, something that small...usually will just round it out if not gripped sufficiently on the flat sides.

 

Yes - I basically turned it clockwise while pulling on it, and it came straight out. Yes, I have your same concern about stripping out the inside. I'm going to bring it to Harbor Freight and see if I can find something there that fits it.

 

Roll Pins are out. Turned out these were press-in pins. Apparently, they are 1 time use pins that must be drilled out to remove them. Once those were out, I noticed a total of 3 of the wafers were sitting proud not allowing the key to turn back to home position. 2 of the 3 were able to be pressed into place manually, but the 3rd (almost dead center of the barell) was stuck. Like so stuck a soaking of WD40 and the torque of a small flat head screwdriver would not release it, I opted to drill out the wafer (repeatedly) until it was deformed close enough to flush to allow the key to turn back home which as guessed... allowed the key to come out. I ended up inspecting each wafer, and they all showed signs of wear/nicks. I'm assuming at some point, a piece of metal was floating around inside the lock for an extended period. That said, I'll either be taking it to someone to put new wafers, or buying a new tumbler. With the wafers out, any key will now turn the lock, but i wanted to install it back into the car just so I could remove the blue tape I had covered the hole with prior to the rain storms last week. The reinstall went easy - turned the key to 60 degrees and the lock went straight in. Plugged back in the security switch, turned the key and opened the door, and...... the alarm goes off.

Naturally, now that my entire zip code knows (twice) that I'm working on the car, I started reading more and get to answers such as - disabling the alarm, removing the instrument panel, jumping relays.... Who engineered this car? THE DEVIL???

In the meantime, I'm only guessing that during the repeated tries to vibrate the key loose, maybe I damaged the security switch?

I'm really hoping someone has been through this and can offer me up another reason as to why the alarm would now be going off??? And what the next step should be.

TIA

 

So I'd like to silence the alarm while I try to work on the vehicle (keeping the battery hooked up). Besides disabling the alarm, can someone point me to where the siren is located and whether or not it can simply be unplugged? I've looked in the forum and could not locate it. I thought the alarm was coming form the horns, but that's apparently not where it's coming from since I unhooked them and the tornado-warning-volume-type alarm still remains.