After nearly 30 years of life, these doors can get leaks and once the water is in the door, rot starts taking place. Take a look at how much toll the years have taken on the wood inside this door. This photo was taken after taking the door off and removing the fiberglass skin fully revealing the rot underneath.
The first task is to get the door off. There are 2 ways. The door is hung in a track the runs across the side of the motorhome. It is reported that you can simply slide the door off the end. I found that I could not do that with my doors without cutting something, so I elected to leave the top piece in place and pry the door off with a couple prybars and a heat gun.
The picture above was taken last year when I rebuilt 2 doors after an accident. The top channel is held on with screws and glue. The glue will let go when it is heated.
The next step is to separate the fiberglass front from the rest of the door. Since the wood at the top had no rot like the bottom, this process involves de-laminating the plywood that the fiberglass is attached to.
Here you see the new frame. It is 1×2 lumber. I used my table saw to rip a nice dry 2×4 stud down to 3/4″ x 1.5″ wood for the frame. I added 2 more vertical pieces and pieces of 3/4″ wood to hold the latch nicely. I glued it to the fiberglass front making sure everything was square and clamped is all down with weights added to make sure everything was flat.
I found 3/4″ sheets of Styrofoam at Home Depot. The width of the Styrofoam was 14″ so that is where I placed the vertical runs to eliminate additional cuts. There are 2 sheets in each space matching the 1.5″ width of the frame.
I installed the NEW latch and the last piece of Styrofoam fits around the lever on the latch.
Not wanting to add any more wood to possibly rot, I found this plastic sheet at Home Depot. I used it last year on the other door rebuilds that I did. It will take 3 sheets (for 2 layers) to do it perfectly and make a nice tight fit inside the aluminum channel on the edges.
Here is the finished back side of the door with the 3 channels attached. (Remember the top channel is still attached to the motorhome). I used aluminum tape to cover the seam on the plastic pieces.
Next there is the rubber seal around the hatch. If yours is like mine, it is worn out and possibly cut or torn. I purchased new seal from Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BVVMQRGN?ref=fed_asin_title&th=1. This comes in different lengths so measure how many hatches you want to replace the seal in and purchase accordingly. You just need a hammer to tap it into place, and a cutter to cut it.
The last thing to mention is the latches. Look at the above picture. The latch in the middle is new and the others are old. It’s no wonder the hatch would not stay closed using the old worn out latches. In the past, I compromised the rubber seal by adding something for the latch to grab. After replacing the latches with the new ones, after replacing the rubber seal, they grab just fine and the hatch has that ‘new car’ feel! The latches can be ordered at Amazon using this link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08SQ6K82R?ref=fed_asin_title
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