Rear Shell Difficult to Position

[Bob&Joyce]

Hi all, thanks in advance for any opinions on this. I have a 2008 2720SL and the rear shell has gotten VERY difficult to open and close, and once you do get it open, getting it into position to secure the lock pins is almost impossible. When the rear shell is opened, it comes to a natural rest position with the lock pins a good bit to the rear of (past) the aluminum corner lock bars. It literally takes all my strength to move the shell back toward the center of the TM to where my wife can latch one of the corner lock bars, and then I have to push forward and sideways simultaneously with all the strength I can put into the thing to get the second pin to line up with its lock bar. In fact, it takes so much maneuvering that one of the pins on the shell is now bent. The TM is leveled and has the stabilizer jacks lowered, but when you crawl into the bed (rear bed) and look at the sides where the rubber seal meets the bed tray, the right (bathroom wall) side is noticeably lower than the other to the point that it creates a very large gap to the outside under the seal. I also notice that when you fold out the left hand entry door jamb (side by the stovetop) when the pin latches into the rear shell, the bottom edge of the door jamb is not straight vertical with the door, but rather angles noticeably to the rear of the TM.

Has anyone else experienced anything like what I've tried to describe?? Are there adjustments to limit the travel of the shell? The TM has never been wrecked, and I can't imagine how the shell could have gotten so out of alignment.

Thank you so much for reading this.

[Bill]

One step you might take is to look underneath at the four torsion bars that support the rear shell (there are four more for the front shell). Torsion bars look like long round black steel rods, perhaps 3/4 inch in diameter. One end of each bar is embedded in the rectangular white lift bar that pivots up as the shell is raised. (There are four white lift bars on each shell, of course.) Once under the TM, the bar makes a right angle bend, then extends across the entire width of the underside of the TM. At the far end, there is another right angle bend, the short stub is catured in a small cage with a big bolt, and probably held in place with a stainless steel hose clamp.

Inspect all four bars. Make sure that none is broken, and that all four are properly terminated and captured on both ends. If one bar has a problem, it would make it very hard to raise the shell, and it would be crooked as you describe. The fact that it opens too far suggests another problem. Because it is hard to open, perhaps when it does open it has been allowed to slam against the stops at the end of travel, and damaged the stops.

Checking the torision bars is quick and easy, so start there.

Bill

[Bob&Joyce]

Thanks Bill, I'll crawl under and check the torsion bars and post what I find. I really appreciate your time and expertise.

[ZekenSpider]

We had a similar problem with our 3326 soon after we brought it home from the dealer. The problem seemed to get worse with every trip we made. Eventually it became clear that the entire right side (door side) of both the front and rear shells were lower than the street side by about 3/4 inch. I positioned the closed TM lower half so it was on level ground (equal distance from the bottom of the floor to the ground at all four corners). Then I opened the TM up and measured the distance from the bottom of each top half to the ground. The passenger side was actually an inch lower than the driver's side.

That told me the struts were 1 inch shorter on the passenger side. I then noticed that all four struts had slipped down on the torsion rod. The four bolts on each strut that were supposed to grip the struts to the torsion rods were all loose. I jacked up each shell at each strut attach point, tightened the four bolts at each strut attach point and found that everything was working properly again.

Possibly your problem is with only one or two struts on your rear half.

For what it's worth.

Jerry