400 - Main Door Jams - Won't Open

AirBoss

(Title edited for search purposes.  Moderator)

Passing along a heads up about the main door latch system. I'd noticed that when closing the door there was slight resistance before I pushed it closed. I made a mental note but have not had the opportunity to take it back out for a couple months and my mental note went where a lot of mental notes go...

This has likely been brought up before so forgive any duplication:


The two horizontal screws sticking out to the right of the mechanism are hex-head (5/16th if I recall) and screw into the mechanism (yellow arrows). When closing the door they pass over the hard rubber gasket (blue arrow) adjacent to the strike plate and slide into the horizontal slots on the strike place in the door jamb:
    

If, as was the case here (blue circles), one of those screws backs out over time, they get to a spot where they'll pass over the hard rubber gasket adjacent to the strike plate, slide into the slot, but when you go to open the door the screw head won't pass back over the hard rubber gasket. 



Thankfully, and quite by accident, the star-gazer window over the bed was not latchced. After some scrambling I managed to crawl through the window, removed the plastic cover plate from the latch mechanism and force the door open from the inside. After a couple slow attempts to close the door from the outside again I realized the top screw had back out enough that it was catching on the jamb and wouldn't let the door open. It's pretty fine line in setting the depth of these two screws. Too far out and you'll end up like I did. Too far in and they'll hit the metal edges of the slots. Didn't measure the clearance but it can't be much more than 1/8" or so. 

It's somewhat odd to me that those screws are even necessary. All they do is slide into the slot. They don't catch on anything, they wouldn't prevent the door from opening (if adjusted propertly that is!) if it was unlocked and flew open on the road or something. Bit of a mystery to me what their function may be...but they're there nonetheless.

Once adjusted, (one was finger loose BTW), door work's great. Put a bit of silicone on the threads to help keep them from backing out.

Bottom line: if you door is showing signs of being "out of adjustment" and you feel some resistance when closing the door (tip, hold the handle out as you close the door so if you feel anything resisting it won't be the latch, it will likely be the screws), check these two and adjust them. A cautionary tale...

falcon1970

Loc-Tite would be better than silicon.
I've always thought that those screws are to keep the door aligned as the trailer bounces down the road.  Other than that they do seem extraneous.

swiftwave

I carefully ground down two nuts to make them thinner, then used them as lock nuts, with Loc-Tite, on these two bolts.
This has held solid for many months of consistent use.

AirBoss

I considered Locktite but decided against it. I'll just monitor it. 

TABNewbies

Nice observations @AirBoss. Learn something new everyday as our lock kscrews (5mm hex) are fully screwed in and will need to correct this in the spring + loctite. I think stemmed from the initial dealer / door did not lock issues where the sticker plate had to be moved out by a washer. 

ie: I now know that this picture is the wrong adjustment ...