Stepper door lock saga continues

[dtamez]

Ok so I found a door lock assy at the dealer for around 20 bucks, great!

My concern is now the lock bars that slide when the lock is turned to engage the slots on the camper body, seems like there is excessive play in the rivets that hold them to the main lock with a big honkin nut.

I think if I do not address this excessive play in the lock bars, I may find myself in the same situation again soon.  That being when retracting the bars to unlock they go too far into the step and fall so that nothing works.

Anybody got any advice on this, maybe seen this before.  My inital thought is to order a new set of bars with tighter rivets to the lock and have less play. I also thought of pinning the ends of the bars to keep them from going all the way in or adding an L bracket to the inside of the slot to keep the bars up when retracted.

If I do the L bracket thing I will have to remove material from the door slot to add the clearance for the bracket, the bars just barely clear the slot with not a lot of room left over to add any thickness of a bracket.

Anyway, I got a whole lot of folks with an opinion here, so I thought I would throw this out and solicit some opinions.

Great forum for this kind of stuff!!

Dano

[AustinBoston]

I'm being lazy and not really trying to visualize the issue, but I wonder if just replacing the rivets with larger rivets would reduce the play?

Austin

[astrowolf67]

I would look at either replacing the rivets, or removing them, and replace with some bolts and nylok nuts.

David

[dtamez]

I would look at either replacing the rivets, or removing them, and replace with some bolts and nylok nuts.

David

I like that idea, had not occurred to me, thanks.

Dano