Check Your Door Hinges

[Calman]

Having problems with door opening and closing. Last Thursday it would not open from either the inside or thre outside. Also noticed striker bolts were hitting on the bottom side of the door latch.

Looked at door hinges. Did you know there are only three 3/4-inch screws holding the door in place? I wingled the door and it wangled. I checked the tightness of each screw and all were very loose. Hand tightened them (will get some Lock-Tight next hardware store run) and door now closes easily. Ditto for opening.

Have added "check door hinges" to pre-camping checklist.

[Judge]

I just went through this last week with our 2020 Magnitude SV34 when I was getting ready to leave on a trip.

I noticed the door was not closing properly. When I took a closer look I could see it felt loose. Sure enough the screws on the bottom hinge were all loose and so were the ones on the middle hinge. I was going to grab my LocTite but found 4 of the 6 screws were in those two hinges were stripped!!!!

You will want to make sure they will all tighten properly and are not stripped like mine were.

I can imagine the gorillas working in the Thor plant were using screw guns with the torque set too high for the thickness of the door metal.

When I took the screws out I could not believe how small of a diameter and how short they were for a door that is opened and closed thousands of times.

I am waiting to get get rescheduled for a Warranty Appointment with the dealer and wanted them to get it fixed right but I had to install larger stainless steel screws myself in two of the three hinges. There wass no way I would have wanted to be driving around and on the road with only one hinge being solid. It is very solid now so I want to see if the new screws work loose on this trip.

I also noticed my door is not closing and sealing in the lower left corner. I am not sure if it is because the door has been somewhat loose to begin with since the screws were stripped but I am going to have the dealer correct that as well.

The gorillas at the plant likely also over-used a screw gun on the outdoor kitchen hatch. One of the mounts for the gas shock is pulling out and folded over on my last trip.

I have found several instanced on my last two coaches were guys didn't know how to properly use a screw gun for the job at hand and ended up over-tightening the screw / bolt, which leads to excessive wear and / or stripping the hole they created.

[Bob Denman]

And it's not just Thor...
I had to tighten all of them up on my Tiffin as well.