This is an oldie but a goodie. I always said that we should do this to our A-frame, especially after we bought the T21TBHW (A213HW) where we could store almost all our gear in the various outside accessible compartments. DW got frustrated with always having to chase down the keys to access stuff for cooking and meals - especially when the keys were in my pocket.
Finally bit the bullet, and ordered 7 locks over the phone from Wholesale 4 Inc. He had 7 locks keyed alike in stock. I ordered on 20 Dec, and received them via Priority Mail on 24 Dec. Cost was $11.12 per lock, with $7.35 shipping.
Gotchas and lessons learned:
- I needed the assembly instructions .pdf listed earlier. Without the diagram, I would have never figured out where the spring, rivets, and balls went. Same with the 90 degree rotation stop.
- DW suggested I insert the spring, rivets, and balls over a Tupperware container to catch my misses. Thanks to her, I only had to search for the balls in the carpet twice. There are no spares included! I put the pieces in the lock, and the lock into the cylinder at my desk with plenty of good light and my bifocals on. It's like doing fine model work. I got better at it after the 1st one. I used good tweezers for the spring and rivets. I could use my fingers or needle nose pliers for the balls.
- I used the cam from the old CH 751 locks because I liked them better, and they already had the right offset. I also re-used the door pulls.
- I oriented them all the same - thumb latch horizontal is latched, the key slot vertical means locked, key slot horizontal is unlocked. This required some fiddling with the orientation of the 90 degree stop and the lock in the cylinder.
- The worst gotcha was the outside shower door. Mine came with a CH 751 keyed lock, so I assumed it was the same size. But no, the outside shower door lock had a 3/4" long cylinder AND was a slightly smaller diameter. I cracked the shower door when I tried to force the new bigger lock into the hole. I filed the hole bigger, and taped the crack with electrical tape on the inside. I used a more offset cam from the new lock package, which worked fine. But the shower door really needs a pull to make opening easier.
- The starboard aft door came with a thumb latch and a CH 751 lock. The lock had a pull, the thumb latch does not. The anal retentive in me wants to replace the thumb latch with a thumb lock to make both look the same.
- Which means I need to order 2 pulls and an outside shower door from Forest River. And I need an 8th thumb lock to replace the thumb latch.
Again, a great mod. Many thanks for those who have gone before me for documenting the mod.
Fred W
2019 Flagstaff T21TBHW A-frame
2008 Hyundai Entourage minivan
camping Colorado and adjacent states one weekend at a time
Linear Mode
