Help with removing exit door handle

[musigenesis]

This is a pic of my rear door exit handle: https://imgur.com/a/vsJol4i

I am trying to get this tray and handle assembly off the door so I can clean everything up and get to the inside of the door. I have the tray and the handle unscrewed as shown in the pic, but I can't get the handle off. The nut or whatever it is that the handle pivots on takes an Allen wrench but I can't manage to loosen it and it seems I'm in danger of stripping this if I try to lever it too hard. There's also a smaller Allen screw that goes into the side of this handle but I seem to be stripping that without turning it also.

I really don't quite understand how this handle is constructed. Is trying to undo that nut even the correct way to get this handle off?

[o1marc]

Let me know when you figure it out. I had the same issues though with some heat was able to back the allan screw out. If that was an allan set screw in the side it was already stripped and I mistook it for a roll pin and decided to drill it out. After all that, that handle would not budge to come off.

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by o1marc

Let me know when you figure it out. I had the same issues though with some heat was able to back the allan screw out. If that was an allan set screw in the side it was already stripped and I mistook it for a roll pin and decided to drill it out. After all that, that handle would not budge to come off.

Crap, that really does not fill me with optimism. I'm thinking I may just end up having to remove the whole top-and-bottom locking mechanism and replace it with something else entirely.

[o1marc]

I'll go back and look at my pics to see if my second door had the same handle assembly, don't remember removing. I just went down looked for the old handle. Couldn't find the outside handle, but found the inside handle. UNlike the one with the long red flat steel inside handle, it had a 1/2" round cast handle that was secured with a nut that after removal you pulled the out side handle out. I think your set up is the opposite like my other door.
Try some heat on it and some PB Blaster.

[Native]

Ours was a set pin. Once I got it out, the handle still did not budge. Ours is not all rusty, I just wanted to remove it for painting. I ended up working around it without removing it. I am interested in learning how to remove it. I have no clue how myself.

[musigenesis]

I couldn't get the Allen nut to move and I couldn't get the holding screw out either, so I made an executive decision to cut the handle off. There's still enough of the through post left that I could probably weld a replacement on and use the original top/bottom bolting mechanism, but I think I'm going to discard the whole thing and use a regular house deadbolt (in conjunction with the vandal sliding bolt at the bottom and a new sliding bolt at the top) instead. One advantage is that I won't have the red handle and its guard thingamajig sticking out so far.

I suspect the original handle was pressure-fitted onto the through post in additional to the Allen nut and the locking screw - they really don't want that handle coming off in an emergency. I think it would not have come off (even with the nut and screw in place) without some applied hydraulics.