BillTheHiker
Senior Member
Sure glad this site exists, having helped me many times, so many thanks. Latest fiasco was the cheap door latch. I had previously read about it and for a time periodically tightened all the screws, but not recently. And that may not have helped this time anyway.
So what happened was I drove a horribly washboarded Baker Creek Road in Great Basin NP to the trailhead and had returned from the hike to discover I could not open the camper door (2016 Fleet). Back home today I removed the door to see that the internal deadbolt was in the locked position. The key did not operate it at all. In fact, I did not even have that key with me because of reports that it is not reliable. So I was using the main deadbolt only.
Others have reported internal screws loosening/dropping out and the solution to use loktite. But I would prefer to replace that entire latch system with something without a lock, just the latch. Or, maybe just disassemble it and remove all moving parts, then attach a door handle on the outside to pull the door open.
Has anyone here replaced that latch with a better product? Or solved this problem in other ways?
So what happened was I drove a horribly washboarded Baker Creek Road in Great Basin NP to the trailhead and had returned from the hike to discover I could not open the camper door (2016 Fleet). Back home today I removed the door to see that the internal deadbolt was in the locked position. The key did not operate it at all. In fact, I did not even have that key with me because of reports that it is not reliable. So I was using the main deadbolt only.
Others have reported internal screws loosening/dropping out and the solution to use loktite. But I would prefer to replace that entire latch system with something without a lock, just the latch. Or, maybe just disassemble it and remove all moving parts, then attach a door handle on the outside to pull the door open.
Has anyone here replaced that latch with a better product? Or solved this problem in other ways?
