Robert J. wrote:

I have a patio door in our house. It has two sliding glass doors
inside a larger frame.The doors (panels) are removable. It is an
older type made about 1960 ish. There are no lock parts available at
the local Lowes.

The problem is this. The glass in one of the double sliding doors
is slipping inside it's aluminum frame. I took the door down
yesterday and it appears that the bottom aluminum frame is wider at
the bottom than the top, which indicates it has slipped out of place
somewhere. There are what appears to be adjustment screws on the top
and bottom but the only seem to adjust the height of the door when in
the larger door frame. If I disassemble the frame for that one
panel, in order to secure the glass, will there be any surprises in
there ?

Nothing appears to be broken and it looks fine but it is apparently
coming apart. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
i am in a similar fix.. got a house i had built in 1971.. the plastic
spline that goes around the glass is similar to what goes around the
glass in the windows around the whole house, but its bigger in the patio
door.. i tried to get some to put in the area around the glass, but
cannot... i did get a lock(new handle with key lock in it) at home
depot.. i had to grind down the metal from a 1/2 in. thick piece to a
3/8 in. think piece... friend at work put it on a commerical grade floor
grinder and made it thinner, looked like it was made for the door after
he was finished with it... you might have to make some parts for the old
patio door if you need them and cannot find them on the net... do a
search for patio door glass, etc on www.google.com or www.yahoo.com
i went through alot of sites and finally gave up on the spline when a
local old time glass guy told me that he has it listed in his catalogs,
but cant get it as they dont make it anymore(the spline).. i hope he is
wrong,but i would like to prove it by finding it....