One of the things that must be kept in mind when living off grid is that you can not always call for help. This becomes an interesting issue when you realize you have a broken key. It can be a key in a padlock, a key in a door or as in my case a key in a car door. Something about the shape of the key for my car has proven to be weak. I had worked around the issue with a broken key in the passenger door, another in the trunk then add one into the ignition and the broken keys had to be addressed.
Without the option of calling in a lock smith I had to become my own.
Step 1, spray the locks with WD/40 to try and make it as easy as possible.
Step 2, find a piece of thin metal, in my case a paperclip
Step 3, bend the tip over into a small a hook as I could
Step 4, I had to find as small a flat head screw driver to hold the flap on the lock of the door locks out of the way
Step 5, Holding the flap open I worked the paperclip in as far past the lock as possible, twisted it to try and hook the key ridges and pulled.
It took three tried to work the broken keys out enough to grab them and pull them out.
Step 6, happy dance
Two Ravens Garden and Permaculture Site 