Door Latch

[CameFromCanvas]

I have a 2011 2720 model with a door latch issue. The latch the holds the top and bottom half of the door together has broken. The “catch” side installed on the top portion of the door has become undone from the door. To make matters worse one of the original screws holding the latch has broken off inside the door.

Has anyone replaced these latches with a better solution. I plan to pull the screw and try to repair this, but I wondered if there is a better solution.

Thanks!

[Bill]

That is a reasonably rugged latch, and if it fails to the point where it pulls screws out of the wall, it reminds me of something.

When TM switched to this style latch in 2008 or so, I predicted a rash of failures, because the latch will insist on forcing the two door halves together even if they are misaligned. Well, the rash didn't happen, but I think that is what is going on here.

Try this. With the door halves unlatched, bring both halves to the nearly-closed position. Note the size of the gap between the outer ends of the doors - it may be 1/4 inch or so. Now slowly swing both doors (together) toward the 90-degree open position, watching the gap as you move them. My guess is that the gap widens, perhaps substantially.

If my guess is right, come back to me and we'll walk through the solution (which isn't hard). If my guess is wrong, there is no point in wasting the time.

Bill

[CameFromCanvas]

First- Thank You for the assistance.

You are correct- the gap goes from about 1/4” when almost closed to about 1/2” when at a 90 degree angle.

[Bill]

And the problem, of course, is that the latch tries mightily to hold that 1/2" gap to 1/4", meaning that it tries to lift the lower door and pull the upper door downward, both of which require flexing the wall. And the walls don't want to flex. The bottom line problem is most likely that the wall of the shell and the wall of the lower body box are not quite parallel to each other. This is easy to adjust, so I will simply point you at three threads where we have discussed the problem and the fix.

Let us know if this isn't the right answer.

http://www.trailmanorowners.com/foru...read.php?t=924
http://www.trailmanorowners.com/foru...ad.php?t=17249
http://www.trailmanorowners.com/foru...ad.php?t=16360

Just FYI. Before TM starting using the mtal latch with the hook - this is what you have - they used a simple rectangular block of nylon, maybe an inch square by 1/4 inch thick. One corner of the block was screwed to the edge of the upper door, which allowed the block to swing down and overlap the edge of the lower door. This kept the doors together in the swing direction. But since the block had no actual hook, it didn't try to keep the doors together in the up-and-down direction. The lower door could simply slide up-and-down against the block. To decouple the door halves, you simply rotated the nylon block upward. Simple.

Bill