26 Keynotes December 2025 aloa.org AUTOMOTIVE Chrysler Sidebar Manipulation: The Prequel marking tool and place a mark at this point. You can certainly place a mark directly over the sidebar, but getting a drill bit onto that point is going to be much trickier. Not only are you not able to drill perpendicular with reference to the face of the lock, but you also need to drill at an angle with respect to the depth of the lock. Just keep that information in mind as you begin to drill the lock. You want the final hole to end up directly over the location of the sidebar. Since you spent time mapping out the location of the sidebar already, this part should not be hard. Starting to Drill Begin slowly drilling using a sharp 1/16" drill bit. Drill an access hole through the layer. The only layer to pierce is the outer shell of the lock. It is important to use a sharp drill bit here. A dull bit will cause more damage because you must push harder on the drill to get it to bite. After you have pierced the outer shell, you should have access to the top of the side- bar. You can check here by using a small tool to apply light pressure to the top of the sidebar and raking the wafers. If you feel the sidebar moving and possibly even collapsing, you have done a good job. Something to keep in mind is to be careful when drilling over the sidebar. If you go in too far, you will gouge a hole in the top of the sidebar and make it more difficult to rotate the lock when you have it properly collapsed. Also, you must be careful not to damage the brass spring caps over the sidebar springs. These warnings are the same ones for the previous article. Basically, it is bad to damage the spring caps or gouge the sidebar. Now that you have access to the sidebar, it is time to pick the lock. Picking a side- bar lock while manipulating the sidebar is quite easy. While you are applying pres- sure to the top of the sidebar, simply pick- ing the wafers typically gives a noticeable and satisfying click, where it is obvious the wafer is in the correct position. The only trick to this part of the process is to be aware of the amount of pressure you are applying to the sidebar. Just like when picking regular locks, the amount of pressure you apply is the key. If you have too much pressure, the wafers will not slide easily, and the sidebar will have a harder time finding its home. If you do not apply enough pressure, the sidebar will not collapse into the notches in the side of the wafers. Use any tool that will fit into the access hole to apply pressure. I have used picks, broken picks, drill bit ends, paper clips, staples, and even right-angle picks, to name a few. Whatever you have handy will work. With pressure on the sidebar, use any other picking tool you have to manipulate the wafers. You can manipulate them one by one, you can rake them, and you can even use jiggle keys on them. Whatever works here is your friend. As you can see in the pho- tograph, I used a Lishi pick here to pick the lock and then immediately decode it. The Lishi pick worked very well for this application. After Picking Now that the lock is picked to the on position, some choices must be made. In the example I am showing in the photos, I simply decoded the lock and made a key for it. In the previous arti- cle, I removed and then disassembled the lock just to inspect for damage. In this case, we are not going to do that. The reason for this is that the tail piece of this lock is friction-fit on. Trying to remove the tail piece to inspect for damage will require damaging the pot metal to the point of destroying it. To FIGURE 9. While you have the lock in this orientation, note the steel plate covering everything internal to the lock. FIGURE 10. Now that the face of the lock and the rest of the work area are exposed, it is time to find the correct drill point to have an access hole for the sidebar of the lock.
