Replacement for PN 381403 shower door latch

[nangoff]

I have a CCD 28, 2004 model which came with a black plastic spring loaded shower door latch that breaks every year or so. It is Airstream part number 381403 which is no longer available anywhere that I can find. I am down to my last latch and need to come up with a solution for the next campaign with it. Has anyone come up with a suitable replacement? Thanks, Gerry....

[Bigdaddy_2]

Has anyone found a replacement for the latch?

[lsmith]

I've looked through the Grainger catalog at the thumb latches and they are all either too large or not enough depth. I am now looking at threaded connector bolts to see if I can fabricate one. Airstream sent me the newest model and said it could be made to work, but I was unable to

Good Luck

[nangoff]

There are none available. I drilled a hole through the entire plastic latch assembly and put a long, thin bolt through it and put a nut on the other side. Additionally when I trvel now I take one of these black clips you use to hold paper together and clamp the door to the frame at the top right side of the door.

The door is magnetically sealed so the only time you need the door latched is when you're driving down the road. Once you're at a site you don't need the door latched anymore

[R.G.]

Hello, and thanks for the info I've already gleaned from the forum. I like to do any give-back I can, so here's one.

I don't own an Airstream, but I do have a motorhome of another brand which used the (then) convenient Airstream 381403 shower door latch. Just prior to my wife's heading off on a trip, the blasted thing broke, as so many people here and other places have noted. I did the usual, calling manufacturers, suppliers, and searching the internet to find that this part is no longer made, as so many of you have found out.

I firmly believe that desperation (not necessity!) is the mother of invention, so I decided to jazz up a replacement. This was successful, which is not always true of my escapades. It was even easy(ish) and cost effective.

I went to my standbys, Home Depot and Lowes determined to find enough stuff to make a suitable replacement armed with little more than the knowledge that my dial calipers said the shaft of the broken door latch was 0.252" - that is 1/4", near as makes no difference.

I had a bag full of this-es and thats when I happened onto a rectangular bar knob in the specialty hardware drawers at Lowes. I'm convinced after some internet searching after the fact that it is a Davies Molding #3087 with the 1/4-20 threaded insert. Lowes seems to stock them. You can see them here: Bar /

The design hit me literally in a flash. I bought two of the knobs, several 1/4-20 hex nuts and washers, and a 12" length of 1/4" aluminum rod.

Back home, I got out the tap-and-die kit, eyeballed a length of aluminum rod long enough to support the bar knobs, spring, a couple of washers, and the same uncovered length of shaft as the original broken latch.

I threaded both ends of the aluminum rod with a 1/4-20 die, leaving the middle un-threaded where it goes through the aluminum door frame. Each end of the aluminum rod got one bar knob and one hex nut to jam it in place. The outside had the bar knob on the end of the rod, nut in the middle, followed by the original spring and a washer. The shaft was then pushed through the shower door frame.

On the inside, I pushed on rubber washer, then threaded the second bar knob on until it just compressed the spring on the outer side and was aligned with the outer bar knob. Then another nut on the inside to hold the inside bar knob in place completed things. With a little clumsying about holding the bar knobs in place while the nuts jammed them in place, it was finished.

I had to tinker it a bit. It did not quite want to pass the outer, non-moving door frame, so I took it to my Harbor Freight belt sander and trimmed the outer width of the inside-the-shower bar knob and hex nut a bit. It worked. It even continued to work, which is another amazement.

I will at some time in the future make it more permanent with some Loc-Tite thread locker on the bar knobs and jam nuts.

But it works, was made from local materials, was under $5.00 for parts, required no shipping, and the aluminum shaft should be free from breaking for semi-forever.