Recently moved into a home with this gorgeous brass door handle that is unfortunately also driving me insane. A few side notes before the main issue: Key is long-lost, and it also appears there’s a lower deadbolt that’s been painted over.
Here’s the issue: handle on both sides does not rotate freely. You have to, with a fair amount of force, manually rotate the handle in order to retract and extend the latch. When fully rotated clockwise, the door auto-locks. When fully rotated counter-clockwise, the latch stays retracted and you can open the door. It also seems that one handle is meant to be interior and the other exterior - the exterior handle is much more difficult to rotate fully when the lock is engaged. I want to be able to have the door closed, but I don’t necessarily need it to lock at all.
How do I restore this to “normal” interior door function where you rotate the handle slightly either direction and the latch retracts? Planning on WD-40 to ease the rotation of the handle, but what can I do to release the auto-lock? Am I screwed without the key? Should I uncover the lower deadbolt portion?