Keys aplenty

I am coming to terms with the fact that I got three keys with this car.  I don’t like it, but there’s not a ton I can do about it right now.  I have one key for the ignition, one key for the doors and hatch, and one key for the locking gas cap (aftermarket, I think).  I plan to remove that, but for now it remains.  I found out that this car also has a lock on the ‘super secret compartment’ below the load floor that holds the jack and spare tire.  This lock is a regular cam lock but it fits my doors and hatch key.  It’s a shame that before I bought the car someone broke the casting on the lock.  If I’m honest I don’t even lock the car let alone the glove box or other interior parts.

Broken lock (my spare gas cap key can be seen above it, the original is round and says ‘gas’)

I removed the broken lock and don’t have any plans to replace it.  If I do it would be nice if it were also an old GM lock cylinder that I could get keyed to my car (I don’t want yet a fourth key!).  When I found out I had GM locks and ignition cylinders I was happy that I would be able to get a key cut locally (not another instance of ‘oh, we don’t carry AMC anymore’) but after I did there was a slight dilema.  The spare keys I got were both rectangular which made figuring out which was for the ignition and which was for the door a bit of trial and error.  The other problem is they didn’t say AMC.

blank, original, AMC copy, generic copy

I rather like my keys that show off the car brand so I took a peek on ebay and got four blanks (two round, two square) for just a hair over $11.  I then got one set cut for $2 a cut at the local hardware store and that was that.  I have retained a blank of each because I’m hoping to be able to find a locksmith to make me two new keys from scratch, without copying the old ones, just measuring them and cutting the new ones to the original specification.  This may sound un-necessary but the keys I have are a bit worn and I’d like a gold standard original.  In the mean time I will hold on to the blanks, and have given the generics to my dad for offsite backup.

The home page for this project is here, it has a link to the album of pictures.