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Well this one is so simple and probably obvious that I am hesitant to ask but I have an original Mills lock and key on this QT backdoor that has been improperly installed and I want to make sure I don't damage it in any way in trying to get it correctly positioned.

If you look at the attached photos you will see that the lock, which is in the locked position (key is removed), has the blade pointing down instead of up.

I assume all I have to do is loosen the threaded ring holding the lock to the door and rotate it 180 degrees and re-tighten the ring. Correct? The blade looks really serious attached to the lock and I would have no idea on how to remove it from the barrel to rotate it.

As always thanks for you much valued input and expert advice.

Yes. I believe it you loosen the threaded nut, you can rotate the lock into the correct position. If the hole isn't fully round (flat side or sides) which is probably the case, you will have to fully remove the lock and rotate it 180.

just undo the large nut and turn the lock around you DO NOT have to remove the latch part!

atac and WATLINGMAN,

Thank you both for your responses and advice.

I got it done but it was a tad bit trickier than I thought it would be.

atac you suspicions were dead on....there were some straight sides that prevented me from simply rotating the lock after loosening the threaded ring. But the straight sides were not in the hole that had been cut into the door to allow installation of the lock! They were in the bracket (red arrow in new photo) that provides the slot for blade to go through to lock the door. Soooo...I was able to completely unscrew the threaded ring, slide it up and over the barrel of the lock and the blade and remove it entirely. Then I could do the same thing with the bracket. At that point the straight sides were out of the way and I could rotate the lock and blade 180 degrees. The I just reversed the disassembly process and got it all securely back together.

Backdoor now locks as it should.

The help on this site is amazing!!!