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Old 10-01-2019, 08:00 PM   #1
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Brand: Thor Motor Coach
Model: Windsport 34P
State: Colorado
Posts: 5
THOR #13837
The Trip Home - Disaster Avoided

We recently introduced ourselves to say thanks to the Forum.

Now for the rest of the story …

This may be a warning to other MC owners with cabinets over the driver and passenger side. I think this should be a factory recall.

We were returning home from a great and successful repair trip from the Thor Factory Service Center in Wakarusa, IN followed by a beautiful trip in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. No thanks to the poor condition of our Interstate highways we took quite a few bumps. As a result our front cabinet above the driver's and passenger side came loose while driving. Luckily, we noticed this before all of the screws came loose from the cabinet and landed on (or in front) of us while on the highway. Basically, ALL of the self-tapping screws came out along the cabinet line along the windshield but luckily (by the time we saw it) the ones on the front of the cabinets were still there. We were still 300 miles from home and needed a plan to keep this from falling on us--no matter how tacky.

We pulled off at the nearest rest stop and secured the cabinet to the upper bunk in the middle as well as on the sides with rope and some parachute cord. This got us home to safety.

Obviously, this is not a problem with the roads but a design defect in the way the cabinet is attached with thin tapping screws. You can see they ripped out of the bottom side of the bunk bed and there was no adhesive used.

Instead of going to CW I knew I could fix this correctly with less aggravation:
- Used Gorilla Glue (caulking gun type) on the old screws and along the separation line of the top of the cabinet and bottom of the bunk plate
- Pressed the cabinet tightly up against the bottom of the bunk bed plate
- Added 6 corner brackets, with glue, and #10 x3/4" self tapping hex nuts
- Let it set bolted and under compression for 24 hours to let the glue cure thoroughly
- This will not come loose again!!
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Old 10-01-2019, 08:36 PM   #2
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Brand: Still Looking
Model: Newmar London Aire
State: North Carolina
Posts: 451
THOR #14340
Wow, just wow! That could have been bad.
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Old 10-01-2019, 09:51 PM   #3
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Brand: Still Looking
Model: Tiffin Wayfarer 24 BW
State: New York
Posts: 22,195
THOR #8860
I'll say!
But you got it fixed better than new: Congratulations!
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