A padbolt that will not throw is usually the keep
I came back from the plot on a wet February afternoon and the shed door would not lock. The padbolt ran a finger's width and stopped. I thought it had seized. I oiled the barrel and shoved. The bolt bent a little and still would not enter. The door had dropped. The keep was no longer in line. The hole I was aiming at had moved, and rust had narrowed what was left.
A padbolt is a sliding bar on the door. The keep is the staple or plate on the frame that the bar throws into. The padlock goes through once the bar is home. That is the whole latch. If the keep is high, low, or packed with rust, the bolt will not throw. People buy a new bolt. The old one still slides in the air. I have done that test now. Open the door and throw it. If it runs, the bolt is not the job.
Alignment is the first check. Close the door without forcing it and look at the bar against the keep. You should see the end aimed at the hole, not at the plate, not at a lip of rust. A door that has dropped on its hinges puts the bar low. Timber that has swollen in a wet month puts it tight. I lift the door on the handle and try again. If it throws when I lift, the hinges have let the leaf down. Packing the keep lower, or taking up the hinges, is the fix. A longer bolt is not. A longer bolt still hits the same wrong place.
Rust is the second check. The keep sits in the weather. Water runs off the roof and down the door. Shed felt that lifts is usually the nails is that leak above. A downpipe that misses the butt is usually the outlet is the wall beside it. Wet on the frame rusts the keep first. I scrape the hole with a screwdriver and look. Orange scale inside a staple will stop a clean bar. Wire-brush it. A drop of oil after it is dry is the same winter habit I wrote about in Winter tools need a wipe and a film of oil. Oil on rust is a brown paste. Clean first.
I also look at the screws. A keep screwed into the skin of the shed, not into a frame or a batten, will walk. Thin board holds a hook for a trowel. It will not hold a latch you shove on a dark afternoon. If the screws turn without biting, the keep has already moved. That is why the hole feels wrong some days and not others.
Skip a cheap zinc bolt that flakes in one winter. The plating goes, the bar pits, and every throw sheds grit into the keep. Skip forcing the handle until the bar bends. I have that bent bar in a tin. Skip a padlock through a keep the bolt has only half entered. You have not locked the door. You have locked a gap. Skip screwing a new keep over the old holes in soft timber. Move it to sound wood, or put a small plate behind it. Skip oiling a seized keep and calling it done. The door will drop again by March.
A shed hook that actually holds a fork is why I want the door to shut. Tools stay on the wall if the weather stays out. A door you cannot throw is a door you leave on the latch, and then the next gale does the rest.
This shows in late winter, after weeks of wet, when the door has dropped and the keep has rusted. It shows again in a hot week in summer, when the timber shrinks and a keep you packed in February is suddenly tight the other way. I now throw the bolt once on a wet Sunday in November, and again after the first hard freeze. If it stops short, I look at the hole, not the catalogue.
I do not need a new padbolt because the old one will not throw. I need the keep in line, clean, and in timber that can hold a screw.
If I later add a buy link here, it will be a paid promo.