basement door stuck

[ckbdk]

Please help! Our door to access the water tanks will not open. The latch opens, but the door itself is stuck shut. Does anyone have any ideas to try? Thanks!

[Skip12]

A few thoughts.

Can you tell what's causing it to be stuck?

After being in storage, ours get stuck to the weather strip. They just need a bit more pull to open them up.

Are you sure the latch is open? The inside latch may not spin when the key spins if the cam is slipping.

Try pushing in on the door before unlocking and unlatching.

Can you crawl in from the other side to see what's binding?

Hope that helps.

[cardwellmarty]

Originally Posted by Skip12

A few thoughts.

Can you tell what's causing it to be stuck?

After being in storage, ours get stuck to the weather strip. They just need a bit more pull to open them up.

Are you sure the latch is open? The inside latch may not spin when the key spins if the cam is slipping.

Try pushing in on the door before unlocking and unlatching.

Can you crawl in from the other side to see what's binding?

Hope that helps.

X2

[ckbdk]

From what we can tell, the latch seems to have disengaged from the mechanism; it doesn't appear to be releasing the pin from the u-shaped bolt. Unfortunately, no, this is not one of the bays that goes all the way across.

[Apsaunders]

I checked every video on YouTube and no one tells you what to do when the door is stuck closed. I checked our forum here and no one seems to know the answer.

The original post was in 2019, but I thought I would comment on how to resolve this issue with the hopes that others that have this problem can read the solution.

My son has a Forest River Class A Georgetown. One of his basement doors was closed shut and would not open, even though it was unlocked. The handle would move to the open position and I checked the handle mechanism and it moved too. The only thing we could figure out is that the arm that moves the latch inside must have dropped behind the pivot arm, rendering it useless.

Solution: First, have a replacement on hand before you do what I suggest. Compare it carefully to make sure you have the right one. Plus you can look inside the new one and understand better what I am going to suggest.

Next, drill several holes under the latch handle (the portion where your fingers slide underneath the latch to pull to open). It is a relative flat area and should be easy to drill. I started with a small bit and drilled about 6 holes in a circular pattern. Then I changed to a much larger bit and drilled until I now had one large hole. You will be able to see the pivot arm that opens the latch fairly easy. Then it is just a matter of taking a screw driver and manually moving the arm. Wha-la the compartment door opens and you install the new latch assembly!

[CKinVA]

Working from underneath the RV, I & (a $100/hour) mobile RV repair guy with great difficulty got to the nuts that held the U-bolt that the latch catches on and removed them/the U-bolt. Once the nuts & U-bolt were removed we could open the bay door.

If I remember right, it took a little over an hour, several metric wrenches, a big screw driver (used as a prybar to force the hatch door open enough to get a hand/the wrenches to the bolt's nuts).

Once opened, we fixed the latch arm itself by removing the back/inside cover of the latch and re-screwing the latch arm mechanism together. That was in itself a problem as the screw for it was an unusual one (metric & fine thread?) and we had a hard time finding one as the original was missing. Note: Ya gotta be careful here as it would be easy to strip the threads using the wrong screws as the metal is pretty soft. I think we also had to find/replace a washer too.

But, at least I didn't have to replace the whole latch with one that didn't match my paint job!

I then went to all my other bays, unlocked/opened them, removed the latch back/inside cover, and tightened any loose screws ... several had worked loose over the years/miles and were ready to give out!

Now checking screws & lubing the latches is now an annual event!