This is the 2nd time I'm repairing this. The first time Lowes covered it under warranty. This time when I went to lowes they told me thee door is discontinued and they couldn't help me. I'm far from handy and it's been broken now for 4 months. This is the door I use to come and go from my home daily.
Both times the top latch remains stuck inside the mechanism and the bottom one out but doesn't attach to the door to lock it. Only slides open and closed.
Please help!
It definitely sounds like an issue with the mortise, though it's strange that the same problem would happen twice in such a short amount of time. That makes me think something else is at play here.
One thing you can try doing is messing with the latch on the handle itself. Remove the handle from the door and try flipping the lock without it being attached to anything. Do you feel any resistance? Does it seem to be working properly?
Next, do the same thing with the mortise. remove it from the door and flip it manually (you can use a slotted screwdriver in the slot). Are you still having issues with the hooks coming out, or do they come out just fine?
Hopefully those two experiments will help us narrow down what the issue is. To be clear, we can supply both the handle set and mortise you show me here, but I don't want to sell you hardware only for it to break on you again after a few months. I'll do my best to to nip this in the bud for you.
That definitely sounds like a mortise lock that isn't working properly. How about the thumb lever? Was that working normally?
My working theory right now is that something is wrong with the thumb lever in the handle itself. I don't know exactly what, but it seems very unlikely that you would get two locks that are defective in the same exact way back to back. Something has to be breaking them during installation and the only thing that interacts with them is the thumb lever. I'm hoping that's the culprit.
Looking more closely at your mortise latch, I do not see the "anti-slam" button that most newer styles have. This helps prevent the exposed locking hooks from hitting the keeper, which could be causing the damage you describe. It is my hope that our newer style will hold up better. Take a look at the 82-265 and the 82-249 along with the related video.
