Two Shell Problems

[TREXHUNTERS]

Help,
(1) We have a problem with our lower shell shutting properly. The other shell opens and shuts pretty easily. The lower (bathroom side) neither opens or closes very easily. The worst problem is that one side is very difficult to latch. I have to pull/or push the shell toward the middle while my wife stands on the bar/rectangle to get it to latch. It usually takes a while. It doesn't look like the shell goes in far enough as the latch barely reaches the catch.

How do I adjust this? It seems like I may need to adjust the torsion system more on one side than the other.

(2) The 2nd problem is that the small door frame piece (left side looking at the door) that fits into the groove on the shell does not fit. One of us has to lift the shell (1/8 inch) to be able to jam the door frame piece into place.

(3) Actually the 3rd problem is an interior problem but maybe it's related. The bathroom door does not fit well after set-up. The bottom is close but the top is totally outside of the frame.

Any ideas on how to make the adjustments to fix these fit issues would be greatly appreciated.

I hope I can get back online in the next day or two.

thanks!

[commodor47]

Originally Posted by TREXHUNTERS

Help,
(1) We have a problem with our lower shell shutting properly. The other shell opens and shuts pretty easily. The lower (bathroom side) neither opens or closes very easily. The worst problem is that one side is very difficult to latch. I have to pull/or push the shell toward the middle while my wife stands on the bar/rectangle to get it to latch. It usually takes a while. It doesn't look like the shell goes in far enough as the latch barely reaches the catch.

Are you leaving bedding on the bed? The rear shell has very little clearance and will not close properly if thick bedding is left in place.

How do I adjust this? It seems like I may need to adjust the torsion system more on one side than the other.

(2) The 2nd problem is that the small door frame piece (left side looking at the door) that fits into the groove on the shell does not fit. One of us has to lift the shell (1/8 inch) to be able to jam the door frame piece into place.

That usually indicates the front shell needs a slight height adjustment. You will notice that the torsion bars terminate into the rectangular (white) support bar. At that point are 4 small screws holding the white support arm in place. Mark the current location of the white support bar on the torsion as a point of reference. Using a support (2 x 4 on top of a hydraulic jack or car jack) placed under the shell and parallel to the white support arm, loosen the 4 bolts and carefully tap down with a rubber mallet on the curved part of the torsion bar. Put some upward pressure on the jack as you hit down on the torsion bar. You should find that 1/8 to 1/4 inch increase in height will be enough to allow the door jamb to fit properly. Do be careful swinging the rubber mallet as it will tend to bounce into the side wall of the box denting the aluminum skin.

(3) Actually the 3rd problem is an interior problem but maybe it's related. The bathroom door does not fit well after set-up. The bottom is close but the top is totally outside of the frame.

I don't think this is related to the shell problems. The top half of the bathroom slides in and out (slightly) from the bottom. It sounds like you haven't pushed the top half towards the outside bathroom wall before snapping the latches together.

Any ideas on how to make the adjustments to fix these fit issues would be greatly appreciated.

I hope I can get back online in the next day or two.

thanks!

Dick

We have a king size feather bed on our 3124KS and are able to close the back shell. I can corroborate that it's tight however. I typically have to pull down on the top back corner of the shell to get the bathroom side latch engaged.

We have the door issue too. At first the door latch wouldn't engage so the dealer ground down the opening to get it to line up properly. I have the same alignment now that you refer to but I'm able to push the shell in a little to get the door pins to engage. If I'm not perfectly level, the door wants to pop open. Because of my driveway, it's difficult to get it perfectly level so I rely on the little plastic latch to make sure it stays closed. If I'm inside it doing something, I just use the deadbolt. It's definitely a touchy design. Not sure how else to design something like this though and keep the weight down.

I noticed that you've got a 2008. I know it's a pain to take it to the dealer, but it seems like something they should fix. That said, I've spent a lot of my time and money fixing my brand new TM because it's too much of a hassle to hook it up and drag it up there. I have a sneaky feeling that many of the dealers don't get tasked to do warranty repairs because of this. For example, my outside faucet has failed and I'll probably end up fixing it myself.

I recall a bunch of posts on how to adjust the shells. You might want to search for them before you take the plunge.

Good luck,

Phil

[wbmiller3]

My bathroom door never fit right and the hinges kept getting bent. I kept finding the door lying in the "hall" on arrival. After replacing the hinges twice I gave up, and installed a curtain instead of the door.

I would drag it to the dealer to get the problem fixed.

As far as the door goes, I had a similar problem getting all the pins into place. The previous owner said that after I had the trailer level, if the door would not go into place to put about two or three turns on the rear jack. That has always worked for me.

I don't know if this will help with getting the unit to close or not, but the folks at the Car Show who checked us out were convinced that order matters when it comes time to close it down, and so the sequence of which side to latch first was important (they wanted us to close it down curb side first on both shells). We've since found that if we try to leave the bed pad on the king (rear) bed then we have much more trouble closing it down, and we have to reverse the order on one of the shells, and now it really matters where the shower curtain is lying when we start to fold it down. We're still experimenting a bit, but the main suggestion I wanted to make is that if you haven't tried it yet, you might try experimenting with which shell to close first.

And if you don't have any bedding on your beds and it's still that hard to close, I'd try to swing by a dealer on your trip as several other people have suggested. I'm sure the Car Show can fix it, but probably the other dealers in Salt Lake City or the various ones in California can as well depending on your route. I'm enjoying following your family around on your blog by the way...it sounds like a great experience.

Mark

We were told to do the street side first. My thought is if either side is easier, I would latch that side frst...that way you are halfway there...

[rotor_wash]

The car show adjusts the torsion bars so the curb side will settle slightly lower. This is not just for closing, but to assist in set up as a single person will set up by positioning on the low or curb side. It goes up much easier that way. I guess if you have a low side to the street, side the opposite applies.

[TREXHUNTERS]

Hi, Thanks for the feedback.

We did as Commodor47 suggested (well mostly) on the door alignment and that worked.

I have seen several write-ups on the torsion bar adjustment but didn't want to mess with it until I had some time to experiment. We've found civilization again so we are spending a few days to re-group and do errands. Oh Wait a minute, We're in Las Vegas. Well we're in a city. I'll try the torsion bar experiments while here.

I agree I should take it to a dealer....but I'm 1500 miles from mine and our route hasn't taken us within striking distance of one.

bruce

We too had problems closing the rear shell on our 3326. This weekend we discovered an easy and simple solution, for us anyway.

When we lowered the rear shell we lowered the shell all the way down to the bumper. This left the back of the shell at the bumper and the front up about 8-10 inches. We could always close it, but it took several attempts going back and forth from the street/curb side.

Now we've discovered that if we lower the shell down so it is about 12" above the bumper, this leaves the shell perfectly level with the ground. It lowers easily to that point and stays there. When you then come forward and use only the shell handles to lower it the rest of the way, the shell lowers much more easily into the clamps. Since we both have not the best knees we use a small step stool to step into the shell handles. And this with a douvey cover on the bed.