Senior Member
Join Date: Apr 2015
Posts: 104
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Past several weeks have been busy with all the maintenance, repairs, and installation of new upgrades to enhance our FR3 in preparation for our planned 10 week trip from California to Maine back to California.
Many of the issues that some of you have been bringing up lately are closely related to the same issues I've been trying to resolve during my preparations.
The problems we experienced regarding the entrance door for our FR3 DS25 turns out to be similar in scope to other owners complaints read on these forums - the door is very hard to close requiring it to be slammed as well as the very scary problem of the door opening unexpectedly once underway.
When we first purchased our FR3 in October 2014 we noticed that the main entrance door had to be slammed to be shut or pulled very hard on the inside for it to completely latch. Not every attempt to latch the door was successful, often the door would pop open shortly after driving down the road. The powerful gas spring attached on delivery was too fast and pressed with too high a force and would open the door rapidly. Once the entrance door flew open, the stairs would extend into the down position, then you had the situation of driving down the road with your door open and the stairs dragging along the concrete. You would have to be very careful when you came to a stop so that you wouldn't hit the stairs on the curb or any other obstruction as you slowed down to stop.
After our 2014 first round trip from California to Maine back to California we had a long list of warranty items that needed to be addressed by our local dealer. Although we had not specifically asked them to look at our entrance door - our dealer took the initiative to have the door replaced due to an issue with either the workmanship or the materials. Never was told on the reason it was replaced.
It is not a trivial job to replace the entrance door on our FR3s'. Not only do you have to reinstall the door but you must then also install a new door frame, the tape graphics and paint to match. Hopefully getting everything hung in complete alignment for proper smooth operation. (Sigh - if only!)
At first we were happy with the new entrance door, and it seemed to work a little tightly – it did required a higher amount of force that I thought was necessary to latch . Soon after using the "new" entrance door we noticed that the door would sometimes pop open after driving down the road with the same issue regarding the steps extending out.
One of my projects to prepare for our trip is to put in a lower aluminum dog barrier on the bottom part of the screen door and with a plastic sheet of Lucite across it to discourage my aggressive dog from poking holes into the screening of the door, and added a long handle to open and close the screen door in a much more accessible location across the entire width of the screen door, and finally wrapping up the door rehab project by installing the clear slider windows sold by Camco.
What I didn't know before I had begun the project was that it was going to consume most of 8-hours of work – lots of test fitting, scrutineering, grinding, tweaking, relocating, lubricating.
The first issue I tackled was the hard to close door and the slamming that was necessary for it to latch properly. As you know, the entrance door on the FR3s' are actually two doors working together – the outer door is where the window is mounted, the keyed front latch handle, the interior hinged latch opener/deadbolt knob and latch pull bar with the small plastic catch for the screen door directly above. The outer door also has two large shouldered guide pins that slide into a sturdy frame mounted stacked metal plate guide that lifts and aligns the door latch and deadbolt, this stacked metal plate has adjustability built in with large headed adjuster bolts.
The screen inner door has a small plastic handle to latch both on the outer door and the door frame as needed. The screen door is very lightweight construction and has plastic whiskers around the edges to seal out sounds and discourage dirt entry.
New door troubleshooting:
When outer door and screen door are connected together in preparation to close the door - swinging it toward the door frame resulted in a dull thud then a drag filled slide across the multiplate frame latch.
Inspecting the latch area I located many signs of contact on all the mounting attachment hardware, outer door pins, door frame receiving latch, and the most bothersome sign of scuff marks on the outer edge of the screen door and along the inner door jamb frame. This was my clue that the aluminum dog barrier, lucite screen replacement and door opener handle weighed enough to cause a sagging door that was hard to latch and scraped along the inner door jamb.
Without a doubt, the act of driving your FR3 will loosen nuts and bolts constantly, so I set to tightened what screws got loose around the door.
Pretty much all the outer door and inner screen door mounting screws to the door frame were loose and turned out of their sockets by a turn or more. Using very light force, I checked all the square drive wood screws used to fasten the doors. Take great care not to over-tighten these screws, set the torque on an electric driver to its lightest setting to be sure you will not strip the holes. Get all the screws to their lowest torque setting, then tighten by hand being very cautious of the feeling that the screw is beginning to strip.
Once tightened, check your door clearances again, you might find the guide pins hit the latch plate a little less. Look at the mounting screws used to anchor the latch hardware and see if any of the bolt heads are scraping against
the side of the doors or the door jambs. Often these bolt heads are marred by heavy handed installers leaving large burrs sticking up out of the top of the bolts.
When you find damaged bolt heads scraping the door jamb it's time to find a rotary grinder, sanding roll, file, Dremel tool, or sandpaper. Carefully remove the burrs on top of bolts while constantly closing door for fit, you will need to shorten bolt head in some cases to gain the clearance needed, just be careful to not grind all the the socket off the bolt head. My FR3 was able to work without interference/scraping while preserving the sockets on top of bolts used for removal. Lots of tedious grinding checking, grinding until it's correct.
At this point, closing door was far smoother with much less force needed to get it to latch. But it wasn't perfect yet.
The hinges were not straight after the screws were tightened, so I used a pair of pliers and gently tweaked the hinges to get them back in a correct angle.
Testing now revealed what might be enough for most, an interference free closure, only slight contact on the bottom of the door latch pins into the latch. The door will shut with the force of two fingers gently pushing on the outside latch. The inner latch can be closed by the force of just one finger.
For the final step, get a wax lubrication stick and a can of LPS2 or LPS3 lube spray. Rub the wax stick on the pins and the latch plates, the lock striker, deadbolt. Wax will not attract dirt, should last far longer than conventional oil lube. Use the LPS2/3 for the hinge pins.
Make sure you have good even gaps all around the door when closed - adjust when needed, check to make sure door doesn't rattle against striker- adjust when needed, check to make sure gap insulators are in correct location and evenly spaced - adjust when needed.
When done with your super-tuned entrance door, have a contest to see who can close it with the least force. If door is corrected and lubricated you might think closure could be done by thought only - maybe someday......
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