Inside Door Latch

The top half of the door on our 2619 does not fit tightly when closed. In order to seal the top half of the door and to provide additional safety while in the TM, I installed an additional "latch" similar to the one the TM people developed to hold the two halfs of the door together.

The attached picture shows the latch on the inside near the top right of the door. I used a 1/4 X 2 inch carriage bolt (20 threads per inch) and a lock nut. The spacer under the latch was made out of some dogwood (it is 1/4 inch thick) I had, and the latch itself was made out of some white oak (it is also 1/4 inch thick). I drilled a 1/4 hole through the door and installed the 1/4 inch carriage bolt. The head on the carriage bolt is such that it locks the bolt to keep it from turning.

This new arrangement seals the upper half of the door and give us a sense of greater safety. It would be very difficult to force the top half of the door open--likewise, if the TM has not been leveled properly, it will keep the door from coming open during the middle of the night while you are sleeping.

My next door project is to install a dead bolt lock in the top half of the door so we can lock the top half of the door, as well as, the bottom half when we go off and leave our TM. Does anyone have a good, easy solution to accomplish this?

A couple of years ago I installed a cabinet lock on the upper door of our TM trailer so that we could lock the upper door (from the outside) as well as lock the door knob. This is one of the previous discussions about "dead bolts:"

http://www.trailmanorowners.com/foru...=7852#post7852

The photos unfortunately disappeared from these messages on the old TM website when it transitioned to this new one. I'll put up a couple of photos of my cabinet lock tomorrow if you wish to see them.

Larry -

After reading your post, I've ordered a C8060 to install on my TM. I would appreciate your posting a couple of photos to see how you installed the cabinet lock.

Thank you for your response.

Russ

Here are some photos of the cabinet lock I installed on my TM's upper door. The first one was taken from the outside view and the second from the inside. I attached an aluminum strike plate to the inside door jamb with glue so that the rotating latch plate would not have to bear on the thin sheet metal of the jamb.

This cabinet lock functions as a single dead bolt lock. That is, you can't lock the upper door when you're inside the TM. I intend to remedy this by installing a slide bolt just above the cabinet lock in the near future.

Larry -

Thanks for the pics. It gives me some idea about the placement and the need for the strike plate. I'm going to attempt to duplicate what you have done as soon as I receive my cam lock via UPS.

Thanks for the help.

Russ

I,am curious why the factory did not install the dead bolt lock on the upper half of the door, and door handle with the push button lock on the bottom half? seems to me this would offer much more security, while the unit is occupied or not.

Originally Posted by nethiker

I,am curious why the factory did not install the dead bolt lock on the upper half of the door, and door handle with the push button lock on the bottom half? seems to me this would offer much more security, while the unit is occupied or not.

Let me preface my remarks by saying that I have a 1999 TM model. It did not come equipped with a dead bolt lock. Are the newer models of TMs equipped by the Factory with a dead bolt lock?

Actually, if the Factory chooses to install only one keyed lock on the door, it seems to me that it would serve best if this lock, the keyed door knob, were installed in the upper half of the door. You can see, however, that the current door design prevents the door knob from being installed in the upper half because it would protrude both outward and inward. You are correct in stating that a dead bolt lock installed in the upper half would be best because the upper half overlaps the lower half.

Before I added a thicker strike plate in the door jamb (for the door knob's latch) and installed the cabinet lock in the upper half of our door, there were a few occasions when we returned to camp to find our locked door wide open. The latch on the door knob's lock simply did not penetrate deeply enough into the strike plate. Now, when we leave our TM, it's securely locked (as securely as a trailer door can be) when we turn the key in the cabinet lock. When we're inside at night, though, we rely on the door knob's lock alone. This is because we can't lock the cabinet lock since its keyway is accessible only from the outside. In the next week or two I intend to install a slide bolt on the inside of the upper door. This will give us a little more peace of mind when we go to bed at night in our trailer.

We did an experiment in our group. We raised the right front stabilizer to various heights. At a certain height, we found that we could hit the area where the lock receiver is located with our fist. Even tho the door was shut and locked, we could open the door in this manner. This experiment came about after a few people returned to their trailers and found their "locked" doors in a wide open position. It seems that when the right front stabilizer is raised too far, the trailer frame bends enough that the door no longer fits the jamb and the lock pulls free, thus allowing the door to open. We haven't had this problem since we discovered this.


This phenomena occurred on the earlier models (ours was a 98) Anyone that knew about this, knew how to get the door open without unlocking the door. I now have an '04 with the additional deadbolt installed above the regular door lock.

Also, if you ever loose a storage compartment key, just borrow someone else's I understand that all TM storage keys and locks are identical. This same key may also be used by other brands of Rvs. I understand there are only about five different keys for all RVs.

Hal

[B_and_D]

Hal, thank you for posting this information about the keys. I just posted about picking up our TM from a dealer, and how they had lost the keys to our TM, but the rep managed to find a key that would fit the storage compartment. Now I know why.

Not that anybody would want our old BBQ and axe and folding chairs, but it's good to know.

Would someone whose TM has a factory-installed deadbolt please post a photo of it. Thanks.