The 'E' Type Forum

Hi, first post here.

I’m looking at replacing the external door handles on my S3 e type as the chrome has flaked off in areas and the keys are not matched. In looking through the various places that sell the handle as pairs there is a large variation in price. SCparts sells them for over £300 and Welsh sells for around £85 (US $120) with everything in between. I obviously don’t want to get a cheap Chinese knockoff that is going to fall to pieces, and on the other hand, how do I know the expensive ones aren’t just overpriced cheap units.

Does anyone have recommendations on where I could purchase good quality handles, obviously trying to save a dollar if possible, but main concern is getting a quality product.

Thanks in advance
Peter

Hi Peter, and welcome.

The best bet is to have your existing handles re-chromed and replace or rebuild the lock barrels with matching keys.

Regards

Peter, it isn’t difficult to rework the locks to have matching keys, though you may need to buy a few old FS locks (not just door locks) to swap leaves from them.
Please also look at the threads below for previous thoughts and comments.

And welcome to the best place for friendly, helpful advice on all things E Type.

Geoff

Thanks Stuart & Geoff, appreciate your feedback.

I did do some research prior to posting, and some of the feedback was that it was simpler to purchase new handles as re-chroming appears to be a hit and miss and can alter the thickness making it difficult to refit the locks. It also sounds like I might need to purchase a few old FS locks ( what does FS stand for?) to get the keying correct.

I’m happy to give this a go, but I’m still interested in understanding how good the reproduction parts are and some guidance around who to source good quality aftermarket/reproduction parts from if I went down this path. The price variation is significant but more $$$$ does not necessarily mean better.

Thanks again

Peter

SNG Barratt has them for around £150 ex vat.

I doubt that there is any difference between the part supplied by different vendors.

We usually just buy new for the reasons you outline above.

Peter, if you look at your keys they should have numbers on them FS987 or similar. The locks are Wilmot Breeden, you can search the forum for more, but if you search on fleabay you may find locks of the make and then check to see if they are of the FS code (against other codes). You can then take leaves out to swap them. A quick look at fleabay Oz only shows a couple of locks. Maybe an old fashioned locksmith could be a simpler way to get this key-alike work done?

Geoff

Thanks Geoff, that’s great information...I’m now starting to understand.

Another question, is the boot and glovebox key the same key?

At the moment I have a different key for each door, a seperate key for the boot and no key for the glove box. When they left the factory how many different locks/keys were there for the S3?

Logic would tell me that the ignition key is on it’s own and the doors, glovebox and boot “should” be the same key, is this a correct assumption?

Though I don’t have a requirement to lock glovebox and boot, my OCD compels me to have them correct and working.

Thanks again for all your help.

Peter

Originally all 3 keys matched. At least they do on a couple of my cars.

Peter, any decent locksmith will be able to either either match your locks to keys you have or cut keys to match the locks you have (even if you do not have keys) - I have done this quite a few times not the cheapest process but not too bad either - was about $70 last time I did it.

Garry

Peter, I agree with Garry, turn to a locksmith for the work to key alike all your locks.
I've just been changing my S2 FHC door locks which had different keys for each door lock and the glove box. On checking the key numbers did not match the lock numbers so someone had previously had a go at them and not put back to the original lock numbers! Now after a fair amount of playing about I've got them all the same. Which is why I recommend following Garry's advice, and Andrew's to buy new. The SNG Barratt handles seem pretty good and if you're really keen to see the original lock arrows on the push buttons then your old ones could be put into the new handles.

Good luck

Geoff

Thanks all, appreciate the great advice provided.
Peter

Peter Wrote:

I did do some research prior to posting, and some of the feedback was that it was simpler to purchase new handles as re-chroming appears to be a hit and miss and can alter the thickness making it difficult to refit the locks. It also sounds like I might need to purchase a few old FS locks ( what does FS stand for?) to get the keying correct.

Hello Peter,
Its more miss than hit when rechroming Die Cast. Even those that appear at first to be in the Hit category, invariable they fail.

Die Cast has quite a fine grain, dense skin straight out of the die and it takes chrome plating well and lasts reasonably. During the process of rechroming, the substrate is linished/polished, exposing a more porous surface that will retain some chemicals used and leads to failure not long down the track. I doubt you will find a chrome plating firm that will guarantee their work rechroming die cast.

A company here in Australia and I suspect in other parts of the word, have a process where the die cast material is stripped and then painted with an epoxy primer (which you can do yourself), then other paint coatings are applied before chroming. I got a quote to rechrome tail lights for S2/S3 cars and it was cheaper to purchase new assemblies that included the lenses.

Regards,

Bill

Agree with Bill. I used to restore vintage Jukeboxes and they used a lot of nickel or chrome plated parts which were a nightmare to restore. The castings used pot metal which, when new, had a smooth skin but the insides were like an Aero chocolate bar - full of bubbles. De-chroming was easy but trying to polish out the corrosion pits (sweat from people's hands as they leaned on the box) simply made them deeper or exposed more. One solution was to copper plate the parts then polish off most of the copper so it filled the holes but it was time consuming and changed the shape and contours of the pieces. Not too much of a problem on decorative castings but with something like a lock ......

What we know about FP and FS keys: http://forum.etypeuk.com/viewtopic.php?p=34688#p34688