HELP Class A Door stuck in open position and cannot close it.

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Stewuce

Member
Joined
Nov 13, 2017
Posts
5
It is 10:15 pm and we cannot close our Class A motor home door. It is a National Tropical, so no online support as they have gone out of business.
We have had the panel off around the lock and it appears that there is a cable hooked up to the top where the hinge mechanism is. This cable is loose and may be broken at the top. We tried taking off the edging for the window. Nothing there of use. We tried to take the panel off of the top of the door, but cannot get all of the screws out. We think that the source of the problem might be there, but don't know for sure. Can anyone make suggestions?
 
I think you mean the door won't latch closed ?

if that's the case, then yes those latch mechanisms do break every once and a while. They are the same latch in many other brands of motorhomes and are available on Ebay and Amazon. Call a mobile RV mechanic, they fix these all the time.

if you need to temporally latch it shut you may have to use the deadbolt lock.

(you are lucky..sometimes they break when the door is closed and you have to crawl out a window )
 
Thank you so much for your reply.

No, actually the door is stuck in the open position. We cannot close it. We can and have closed the screen door. If we could have closed it we would have used the deadlock bolt. Last night we put a towel slightly over the top of the screen door and closed it, so that keep some of the heat in, but that is not a permanent solution.

Fortunately, we are in a fairly safe, gated, RV park and it doesn't get too cold at night. There is comfort when one closes and locks ones door at night. Not so much for us last night.
 
ask some of your neighbors for a mobile RV repair guy they would recommend.
 
I know this will probably sound really stupid, but...did your partner or one of the kids possibly latch the door open with the hold-open bar on the side of the coach?
Hey, simple things first.
 
I wish it were that simple. No kids, just dog and cat.

Actually, we think we have figured out the problem. My husband was able to get the plate off of the top of the door. The cable for the Pos-a-lock was frayed at the top and no longer working. It is long enough that we can cut off that frayed section and put a cable stopper on the end. Fortunately, there is a company not far from here who has a cable stopper. Don't know if it will work, but my husband has gone to check it out.

We can now close the door but there is nothing to keep it from opening all the way to the mirror. Hopefully he will find the part we need and will be able to repair it.

Here is what the problem looks like. The cable that you see connects to the large door hinge at the top of the door. That cable was frayed and therefore not working. I will let you know if the repair job works. The cable stop costs about $10. To replace the whole cable would cost $42.56 and would have to be shipped to us.
 

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Here is an update. The cable stopper that he purchased was too large to fit in the space provided. The cable stopper on the door end fit in that slot. So he had to pull the cable out and hope that he could feed it through the tubing the other direction. Fortunately he was able to feed the reversed cable back through the rubber tube and put the purchased cable stopper at the other end where it did not have to fit into anything. Then the large hinge had to be reattached to the top of the door and the side of the motor home. Then the panel put back in place.

Yeah, it is working like it is brand new.  I hope this post will help anyone else who runs into a similar problem.

Cannot really complain. We have had this coach for 14 years and have had very few repairs. It is still working and looking pretty good for its age.
 
Glad it all worked out.

The say National built a pretty good rig,  It wouldn't hurt to order a new cable anyway.
 
I would imagine that one could find a cable at a bicycle shop for less money, and there are usually a few of these shops around, so no need to order it in.
 
Glad to hear it's fixed and thanks for letting us know how you did the fix.  Indeed it might help someone else!

ArdraF
 
What some people are using now is one of those shocks you can buy as a replacement for the back door on a van. takes a bit of work but good results are reported. Is placed on the outside at the top of the door. It prevents the door from opening too far and puts some pressure on when closing the door. It generally replaces that scissor joint at the top of the door on most motor homes.


Bill
 
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