Top door won't close when unit is up

[Cid]

My doors both close beautifully when the trailer is down. We have an 1981 16ft. When we raise & level her the top door no longer shuts. Any ideas?

 

[JackandJanet]

Cindy, It sounds like the beam over the upper door has broken or is "bent". This has happened to others here, and maybe one of them will offer some advice on how to fix it. I suspect you're going to have to open that area, probably on the inside to get to the problem.

You MAY be able to effect a temporary fix by cutting two 2x4s of the proper length that you can jam in between the outriggers and the top, when up, on that side.

- Jack

 

[Cid]

Thanks for the quick response. I was hoping for a quick fix. I'll have it checked out.

 

[Danapangle]

Levelers

Make sure your trailer is level. When you are using your levelers, one on each side, and one on each side in the back, make sure that you don't tweak the one closet to the door. I've had door problems before and it turns out I was putting too much pressure on the HiLo structure and it was tweaking just enough to pressure the door. Worth a try before you tear your roof apart

 

[Tomrupp]

What Danapangle said. My doors are funky too, nothing broken. my scissors jacks I use for STABILITY ONLY. If I use them to level the trailer the door either opens and closes way to easily or jams completely, Remember to level the trailer with shims/blocks under the tires and the front tongue jack. Then lower the stabilizers to do what the name says with minimal pressure on them.

 

[Angel-HILO]

I think a lot of these HiLo travel trailers suffer from this problem; at least mine does. I have a 1989 25ft classic and something similar to the problem you're having also happens to my HiLo. If you take a look at where hilo decided to attach the front and rear lifting cables on the passenger side/door side, you'll notice that this poor design wants to kinda split or spread the door way opening when it's going up or when it's in the up position. You can't see it but I would imagine that the frame around the doorway is flexing and being pulled apart; Kinda like trying to pull a horseshoe apart. My door latch and lock clearance changes depending if it's up or down. So sometimes it would not latch or lock when in the up position AND vice-versa (too tight of a clearance when down). I worked on it for days and then just decided to replace and reinforce the door lock latching points. What a pain in the rear, and I think a design flaw from the manufacturer.

 

[oldcarguy]

Second to Tom Rupp's comments about levelling - the prior owner of our 2307 made a point of walking me through the procedure she used to level the trailer, and said she had door issues if she didn't follow it. We've used her procedure for the last 3 years and never had a problem with either the upper or lower door bindng.

Her procedure:
1. level the trailer side to side with spacers under the wheels on the low side (we later discovered Anderson leveling wedges and love 'em - https://andersenhitches.com/products/camper-leveler)
2. level the trailer front to rear using the tongue jack
3. crank the corner supports down until they touch the ground, then just enough farther that they're pushing against the ground a bit.
4. raise the upper section.

We've had the same issue with the door opening that Angel mentioned - finally figured out that the curb side of the upper section wasn't adequately supported when it was lowered and was flexing on rough pavement. Resolved the issue by adding a 3rd outrigger support just ahead of the front wheel / behind the entry door on the curb side

 

[Snowing Mountain Camper]

Or you could
Cut 2 x 4 or something and inside or outside the camper when raised going vertically next to the door either from the bottom of top outside to the ground carrying the weight of the camper top so top is not sagging in middle
Or
Do it on the inside from ceiling to the floor and if that way make the top like a t or a 2 x 4 spreading across the ceiling maybe a foot
I think something like this would be a good feature built in to take the weight off of the cables when in the raised position and somehow have a vertical bar holding the weight instead of the cable
Just an idea!