Old mortise lockset (Corbin)

[hadcarryer]

I recently bought a building with a pretty nice, old, working Corbin lockset in the door.

There was one exception... the side buttons do not seem to detent, although they do lock it when the correct button is pushed. So.... I took it apart and found a small shaped leaf spring under the buttons, loose. I have studied this for an obvious place to reinstall. I am down to doing what I did with the same result. I found a similar lock in a junk pile and thought I'd check out where that little thing went. Same spring, and also loose in the box.

Is there any resource that shows old assembly diagrams or the such??? Could someone point me there please.

[schiejr]

I am not aware of any online diagrams for the obsolete stuff. Corbin and Russwin had a lot of different old locks. Often you may find only part of a spring, which falls out after it breaks.

The 1960 vintage Russwins I have, with green cast iron cases,use a spring that looks similar to a clothespin, or "V" with a jog in one end. On these locks, the apex of the v goes over a post, the sraight end of the v goes up and sits against a stop on the case and the end with the jog goes down and rides on the cast brass button to provid spring tension to keep the button in or out until pressed.

If this does not help, taking in to a locksmith for a look see may your best bet.