Alignment creep

[commodor47]

nwhouston,

At one point the bottom of our upper entry door was rubbing on the top section of the lower door closest to the hinge. It was enough to wear the paint away leaving a shiny aluminum surface exposed. It was actually removing some of the metal. That is the way our TM was behaving when we purchased the unit from the first owner (we are the second owners) in 2004.

Sometime around 2006 the owner of MCD (TM dealer in West Yarmouth, MA) explained the process of raising the curb side of the outer shell to correct the door issue. He explained the adjustment available for the white rectangular lift arms. Near the base of the tube, where it receives the end of the torsion bar, is a slight bulge. The bulge is on both sides of the rectangular tube. You will note the bulge extends slightly above the top two bolts holding the torsion bar in place. Because the bulge ends at some point, it may not be possible to move/drive the rectangular tube down any further. However, there should be ample room to raise the rectangular tube up (away from the torsion bar end).

At our TrailBlazers Jubilee Rally in Niagara Falls in 2012, one of the factory reps came by and adjusted the height of the rectangular lift arms using the same process as MCD. He said over time the lift arms tend to slip down.

Dana at MCD said to use an upright 2x4 on top of a hydraulic jack placing a spacer between the top of the 2x4 along the bottom of the shell for support. Place the support about half way between the rectangular tube and the end of the upper shell. Make sure to apply enough upward pressure to keep the 2x4 in place.

Before doing anything else, use some masking tape (or anything else that might do the same thing) and make alignment marks on the rectangular tube and the torsion bar such that you can return things back to their original position should the following adjustment fail to solve your issue.

Next loosen the 4 bolts holding the end of the torsion bar to the bottom of the rectangular tube.

Now add more upward force to the 2x4. At this point the outer shell will not move upward but you will have placed enough force for the next step.

Use a rubber mallet and strike the top portion of the curved torsion bar. It may take several strikes before the rectangular tube starts moving upward. Be careful as you strike the torsion bar as the mallet will tend to bounce and hit the side wall of the box causing small depressions (ask me how I know). Check your alignment marks for movement.

Repeat the process of increasing the upward force on the 2x4, striking downward on the top of the curved torsion bar.

It may take several strong strikes on the curved part of the torsion bar before you see any movement.

Keep an eye on the large black plate holding the torsion bar up against the bottom of the box. You don't want that plate pulling out.

In your case Larry, this process may be what is needed to close the gap between the end of the upper shell and the lower shell (curb side) when the TM is opened. It should also help with your door alignment issue.

Dick

[commodor47]

Originally Posted by nwhouston

As I mentioned in the 'bounce' thread we are off to Virginia to camp for a few weeks. So the continuing issue of mis alignment in our upper shell will present itself in a door that does not close and a front upper shell piece-to-back upper shell piece seal on one side that does not mate up like it should (see pic).

Larry,

Close the TM and have an assistant place a foot in the stirrup to the left of the entry door. Next loosen the two hold down latch bolts and ask the assistant to use enough downward pressure to close the gap between the shell roofs. You will notice the bolts ride in slots on the hold down latch allowing for some up and down adjustment of that section of the roof. Once the outer roof is where you want it be in relation to inner shell roof, tighten the two hold down latch bolts.

Dick

[nwhouston]

Dick, great explanation on adjusting the white support arms. Probably in another post (by me) on this endless topic I explained how I drove to east Dallas and paid an RV tech for three hours of such manipulation. No change. But I may well try it again (your write up is exactly like prior ones on this topic, so I know the method is there if I can just get some results. I just did it yesterday for the upper shell arm by the door to see if it had in fact raised; after all manner of loosening, banging and shoving, no change (which in this case likely says it had not raised at all.)

The idea of adjusting the hold down latch is a new one (to me) so I will try that while I have the trailer in prep mode in the driveway. Sounds straightforward, and the fix may well be that simple.

I appreciate your clarity in writing as well as the labeled picture. Big help to me, and I am sure other TM'ers following this saga. Thank you for being prompt as well.

Larry

[nwhouston]

Dick, based on your effort to resurrect your old post, I went out and re-loosened the bolts on our front passenger side upper shell support and gave it another try. With generous banging, both silicon and WD 40 doses, and more banging, I got it to come loose. Then I jacked up the front end to the elevation I needed to match the driver side (only about an inch of movement needed), and 'tapped' on the torsion bar itself to get the white support to slide up. Sure enough, given about 10 generous 'taps' it let go and voila, even across the front.

Hopefully it will stay for a while. I will try adjusting the latch on the same side at the mid point support arm when I lower the trailer.

Thanks again for reposting. About the fourth try, hammers, tongs lubricants and jacks, and sure enough, movement.

Larry

[commodor47]

Originally Posted by nwhouston

. . .

I have drilled out the hole for the pin on the door wing piece so it is a fraction lower and thus easier to seat when setting up, but I still have to lift the passenger rear with the scissor jack to the point it will seat, then back off. . . .

Larry

Every once in a while I had difficulty opening our entry door from inside the TM. The knob turned but the door would not open. It acted like something was locked. I would lift up on the door knob and that would occasionally free up something and allow the door to open.

This year during our winter stay in AZ I noticed the upper door hinge pin had dropped down. It located itself behind the lower door hinge preventing the lower door from seating completely in the lower door clasp. That prevented the door knob latch from clearing the door jamb. I used a punch to drive the dropped pin back up and that solved the problem.

The attached thumbnail shows the location where the upper door hinge pin would be if the pin had slid down. You can also see where the lower entry door and part of the hinge was being worn. That was caused by an out of adjustment curb side white rectangular lift tube to the right of the entry door.

I do apologize for the dirt in the thumbnail - haven't had time to clean things up since our return from AZ.

Dick

[commodor47]

Originally Posted by nwhouston

Dick, based on your effort to resurrect your old post, I went out and re-loosened the bolts on our front passenger side upper shell support and gave it another try. With generous banging, both silicon and WD 40 doses, and more banging, I got it to come loose. Then I jacked up the front end to the elevation I needed to match the driver side (only about an inch of movement needed), and 'tapped' on the torsion bar itself to get the white support to slide up. Sure enough, given about 10 generous 'taps' it let go and voila, even across the front.

Hopefully it will stay for a while. I will try adjusting the latch on the same side at the mid point support arm when I lower the trailer.

Thanks again for reposting. About the fourth try, hammers, tongs lubricants and jacks, and sure enough, movement.

Larry

Thanks for posting your success. I was going suggest you remove two of the bolts holding the rectangular tube lift arm to the torsion bar. Once they are removed you could squirt some liguid wrench in the hole (or something similar). That might be just enough to free up the end of the torsion bar. No doubt rust contributes to the difficulty in adjusting the rectangular tube lift arm.

Dick

[Larryjb]

Larry (I see you haven't been on in a year, and this is an old thread anyway but I thought I'd reply anyway for the sake of any one else coming across this thread),

1) I had the issue with my lift arms not being vertical. This got corrected when I replaced a couple of torsion bars. It appears that, especially if the torsion bars are over stressed for any reason, they may actually bend out of shape. Apparently I had the wrong torsion bars on mine. Once replaced, the lift arms are now vertical. However, this was a a fairly involved repair.

2) I have noticed that the lower wall frame rail can collapse. I'm not sure why this is happening, but I believe it is happening on more than just on mine.

If you have this happening:


Then check the lower frame rail of the shell wall:

In the shell wall, you can see that the lower frame rail is not completely parallel with the shell, and has been pushed up into the wall. I tried to correct it but have not been successful yet. I will be working on a fix for this in the coming weeks.

Problem #2 will cause alignment issues. The shell height will be correct if measured according to Trailmanor. However, the actual shell height will be out by 1/2", here's why: because the lower frame rail was pushed upwards, so was the pivot bolt. That's why you see the damage of the exterior aluminum around the pivot bolt. As a result, the entire pocket stop framing has also been pushed up, by 1/2" in my case. When you measure the 39.5" for the front shell, you are measuring from the lower edge of the lower wall to the lower edge of the upright lift arm, not the shell. The actual height of the shell should be 37" measured from the lower edge of the lower wall to the lower edge of the shell wall. In my case, to get the shell aligned correctly, I had to increase my the Trailmanor specification to 40" for that one lift arm, and now the shell is aligned correctly.

Please not that if the pocket stops are in good shape, the 39.5" specification is accurate and you should continue to use this measurement.