Lever on rose door handles driving me crazy

Murmansk

I'm wondering if anyone has any tips for lever on rose door handles - they're like this one:


I come across them quite frequently and often they're not attached properly so come loose. They are attached in three ways, one is there are a number of screw holes in the plate that attaches the handle to the door, two is that the square shaft going through the door is secured at each end by an allen key fixing in the handle, three is where my problem lies

It's these little beauties: 

They go through from one side of the door to the other, holding the handles on and helping prevent them getting stressed when the door is opened. The problem is that fitting them can be a nightmare - you have to hold the female bit on one side the feed the male bit through so they meet up but THAT can be a massive challenge and I'm wondering if anyone has worked out any way of doing it more easily as it drives me crazy! It's as though the end I'm seeking to insert the bolt into is in another universe but I know it's actually only a couple of inches away - I think it's something to do with quantum physics!

I think I might not be the only one to have this problem as a lot of the loose handles I meet don't have the bolts fitted and often the handles are just attached using the small screws in the plate and if the door isn't particularly solid the screws just pull out.

BarelySentientAI

Drill smaller holes so there's no 'slack' for then to misalign?

Grenage

I wonder if they are hollow doors that have been put on the wrong way round.  Don't they normally have a block on one side for the furniture?

Rodders53

They do come loose.
Simple enough to tighten up occasionally (if the cover unscrews readily - I've had some that are hard to undo).  Tip: Loosen both covers before tightening up the through bolts!

Remove the fixing screw/bolts one at a time and use a drop of threadlock on them if you really want then to not undo again? 
*Loctite 222 is designed for such purposes where dismantling may be needed in the future. Get the smallest size you can as it is literally one or two tiny drops per screw needed.  You want a low strength thread lock in case you need to undo the screw in the future.

* Other brands are available,

Murmansk

BarelySentientAI said:

Drill smaller holes so there's no 'slack' for then to misalign?

That sounds like good advice but in practice I think I have concluded I'm fairly sure that what's actually helpful is a BIGGER hole for the bolt because you have to drill through from each side to make the hole so the chances of aligning two smaller holes is slim!

The problem I have had is getting the two bits of bolt to meet once the bits of bolt are inserted into the holes in the handle's plate.

Ganga

We bought door handles ( flat plate type ) and they have the same bolts as yours BUT  one end of the bolt has a square end that locks in the handle and the other end has a slot for a screwdriver to tighten them up ,use a good quality screwdriver and DO NOT TIGHTEN the grubscrews up till the screws are tight. 

BarelySentientAI

Murmansk said:

BarelySentientAI said:

Drill smaller holes so there's no 'slack' for then to misalign?

That sounds like good advice but in practice I think I have concluded I'm fairly sure that what's actually helpful is a BIGGER hole for the bolt because you have to drill through from each side to make the hole so the chances of aligning two smaller holes is slim!

The problem I have had is getting the two bits of bolt to meet once the bits of bolt are inserted into the holes in the handle's plate.

I drilled straight through from one side.  Didn't need to align anything afterwards then.

ThisIsWeird

BarelySentientAI said:

Murmansk said:

BarelySentientAI said:

Drill smaller holes so there's no 'slack' for then to misalign?

That sounds like good advice but in practice I think I have concluded I'm fairly sure that what's actually helpful is a BIGGER hole for the bolt because you have to drill through from each side to make the hole so the chances of aligning two smaller holes is slim!

The problem I have had is getting the two bits of bolt to meet once the bits of bolt are inserted into the holes in the handle's plate.

I drilled straight through from one side.  Didn't need to align anything afterwards then.

You seem to have mastered the skill of being able to drill through a flat surface at exactly 90o!
How the hell...?

tetrarch

Murmansk said:

It's these little beauties: 

They go through from one side of the door to the other, holding the handles on and helping prevent them getting stressed when the door is opened. The problem is that fitting them can be a nightmare - you have to hold the female bit on one side the feed the male bit through so they meet up but THAT can be a massive challenge and I'm wondering if anyone has worked out any way of doing it more easily as it drives me crazy! 

Do this the other way around. Put the male through and fit the female to it. Often you can actually see the end of the male bolt and this makes fixing much easier

Regards

Tet

BarelySentientAI

ThisIsWeird said:

BarelySentientAI said:

Murmansk said:

BarelySentientAI said:

Drill smaller holes so there's no 'slack' for then to misalign?

That sounds like good advice but in practice I think I have concluded I'm fairly sure that what's actually helpful is a BIGGER hole for the bolt because you have to drill through from each side to make the hole so the chances of aligning two smaller holes is slim!

The problem I have had is getting the two bits of bolt to meet once the bits of bolt are inserted into the holes in the handle's plate.

I drilled straight through from one side.  Didn't need to align anything afterwards then.

You seem to have mastered the skill of being able to drill through a flat surface at exactly 90o!
How the hell...?

Complete luck I think?

Didn't even think about another method, just noticed that the bolt had to go all the way through the door, so in my head that meant one hole straight through.