Keyhole Cover DIY

[mdk5623]

Saturday is mod day here on the Miracle Mile, today we tackle the keyhole cover....My new cover arrived primed and ready to paint (....for LA folk, Beverly Hills Auto Body, 200 N. La Brea Blvd.; $40....a perfect match, and the babe taking my order knew exactly where to look for my Oxford Green II I.D. #..... )--it is merely a plastic shell wrapped around the brass dummy cylinder. It is attached via two 1 1/4" by 1/8" plastic 'legs' that jut out in a perpendicular fashion from the body of the cover (see pic). In my case, the part arrived in the coupled form: it looked as if it were one piece, and I was misinformed that it was so--NOT SO. The cover will slip off the brass piece when the two legs are pried apart....open her legs slowly and be gentle....you need the feet that are on the end of the legs when you install--they wrap around a little indentation on the cylinder, holding it firmly to the body. Here is the way I did this mod, about 5 minutes in time is all it took....You do not need to pull the door panel if you are only using the cover portion of the part, as I am doing here. I have chosen to keep the OEM key cylinder on the car, but just use the newly painted cover as just that--a cover. Lock-pop issue is not solved by modding this way, but not many thieves are going to have the time or knowledge of just how to get to a cylinder they don't for sure know is there...follow? Anyway, here are the steps:

Pull the 1" black oval tab (see pic) on the side of the door, directly adjacent the door handle..it is in two parts...pull the inner oval with a small flathead screwdriver and then remove the remaining outer edge, exposing a larger oval opening in the door. Inside this opening, directly opposite the keyhole in the cylinder, is a 8mm allen that needs to be loosened--hold onto it--I used a T-wrench allen to loosen it and then apply some pressure against it. The cylinder portion of the lock will come away from the outside of the car body a bit, just enough to pry it's cover off. It is attached the same way the new piece is, with those legs and feet described earlier--wedge a large flathead screwdriver on the edge of the old cover, in between the rubber door handle gasket and the lip of the old cover and forcefully break it away--It's only thin plastic. I found that installing the new cover was easier to snap on when the door handle was pulled away from the car body (as if you were opening the door...). This allows you some wiggle room from side-to-side to set those legs properly--I snugged the new part on half way, then snapped the bottom flush to the handle gasket, then the top. A little Zaino, mod complete. I like this mod because you still have a way in your X in a dire emergency, as long as you hav'nt lost your keys....$65 for the new cover vs. how much to replace that rear quarter window??....ouch, I'd rather have to break a little piece of plastic than a beatifully tinted section of privacy glass....