Broken Outside Handle 1972 Tradewind

[apolaroid]

Son was heavey handed in opening the door on our 1972 Tradewind. As of right now the outside latch is not working to do anything, but the inside handle is working fine. After having my son crawl trhough a window we had been working on with no screen, he opened the door from the inside. It still locks, and opens from the inside, but the outside handle is useless, I am planning on opening the screws and taking the lock/handle out tomorrow and seeing if I can reattach the front handle piece. Any advice or thoughts to help me, I am on a fix budget and need to keep the cost down, we are still repairing out home from Hurricane Ivan, and my son uses the Tradewind as his room during the repairs of our house.

[overlander63]

That is the infamous "unobtanium" door latch. If you can't fix it, Inland RV has a kit to retrofit a slightly different latch to your door. A new latch, if you can find it, is about $700. Good luck fixing it, maybe the above will be a really good incentive to make it work.

[whitelight]

. . . . had this same thing happen as we were preparing for a winter trip! I was packing the trailer (74 Sovereign), husband at work. After closing the door with my leg (arms full!) the next packing load had to return inside the house as the door latch didn't do anything.
Upon husband's return, we removed the hinge pins on the door (no open windows in the trailer this time of year!) & took the door off to gain access to the trailer. We discovered that the interior handle worked perfectly.

So, in near freezing weather, he removed enough rivets from the inside door to gain access to the door handle. He removed the entire handle/lock mechanism.

Upon inspection, he discovered that there is a pin, about 3/4" to an inch long, that actives the latch mechanism that opens the door. What happened in our case is that this pin became dislodged at the inside end of the door handle. The pin is a friction fit.
Now, I should have taken pictures but I was standing around holding cold aluminum! Simply illustrated, it sort of looks like this:

__________o- blue=handle, red = pin

When this pin fell out, the door handle did not engage the latch.

So, best bet is to remove the handle/lock in a controlled environment so that you can see any little pieces fall out!

Good luck!

(yes, we finally did get on the road - the next day!)

[apolaroid]

Finally after waiting too long I have removed the lock and handle system. It appears to me the one piece of metal has bent out from a forced open or shutting of the door. I plan to gently bend it back in place. What I am wondering before I start how to best bend the one part, can it be removed. Also can it be adusted because I see that the piece being bent back still leave the outside not shutting flush. It looks to me (old eyes here) that there are some allen wrench holes under the handle. If the handle can be removed, can it be adjusted. Doing all this on a very fixed and limited income, so really dont want to break it trying to fix it, and adust it. Plus what do you suggest for maintence while this is off and open. I Know someone mentioned pot metal in here, thats why I was worried about just going in and bending it back without thinking or planning. I have added some images for you to see what I mean about the bend and all. With your advice I have a better chance of doing this the right way.

Thanks,

Shawn

[Inland RV Center, In]

Originally Posted by apolaroid

Finally after waiting too long I have removed the lock and handle system. It appears to me the one piece of metal has bent out from a forced open or shutting of the door. I plan to gently bend it back in place. What I am wondering before I start how to best bend the one part, can it be removed. Also can it be adusted because I see that the piece being bent back still leave the outside not shutting flush. It looks to me (old eyes here) that there are some allen wrench holes under the handle. If the handle can be removed, can it be adjusted. Doing all this on a very fixed and limited income, so really dont want to break it trying to fix it, and adust it. Plus what do you suggest for maintence while this is off and open. I Know someone mentioned pot metal in here, thats why I was worried about just going in and bending it back without thinking or planning. I have added some images for you to see what I mean about the bend and all. With your advice I have a better chance of doing this the right way.

Thanks,

Shawn

We offer same day repairs on the KT locks.

Ship it to us next day air, we receive it by 10:30 am, we check it, we call you, if you OK the repairs, we do them and ship it back to you, the same day, via next day air, if you so wish.

We also are the only source for tumblers that fit the original KT locks. Airstream no longer has them for the original lock.

If you chose to decline the repairs, we ship your lock back via UPS ground, at no charge.

Andy

[WestMichCamp]

I have the exact same issue as you. Pulled my pin out, and put new expansion pins to hold the main pin in the latch, and it opened the door fine, but would not lay flat. Did you end up removing the large pin with the disk on it?

I thought that was my problem, so I ordered a new one from Inland. When I got it and compared it to the old pin, the pin from Inland did not have any holes in it. My old one has two that line up to the two holes you show in the exterior latch. Im going to call them on Monday, but I doubt the will tell me if there are supposed to be holes in the pin they sent me, they will probably offer to have me send it in for them to fix, like the reply you got from them on your post.

I see that you have not gotten any response to your problem, only a sales pitch from someone to fix it. The pin I ordered cost $44 and they charged me $12 to ship it. It was not overnight shipping either, it took a week.

Let me know if you were able to get it to work. I have spoken with a friend of mine that owns a machine shop and showed him the part. Even if the pin is not supposed to have holes, he thinks he can make one that will replace the original, with threaded holes in it, and then I will be able to screw it in, vs the expansion pins. Its a lot of work, but if its a better fix that's what I might do.

I will all depend on what I hear back from Inland on Monday. My guess is that it's suppsed to have holes and the one I received was defective.

[apolaroid]

As of right now, I took the unit up to a friend of mine who works on Air Force planes. He simply applied pressure to bend the one part back to allow the outer door to open, it wont lay flat though. looks to me as if the pins in the outer knob are bent and need to be pulled and replaced. How to do that I dont know. I need to replace the unit back in the door and it will function until I have the funding to send it in to Inland RV. I would prefer to find a better answer then rebuilding this when what I have read it was not Airstream's best thinking when it was designed. Funny thing, Camping World had universal RV door knobs selling for about $20.00. Wish something like that was an option.

[qjktx]

The folks at Oasis RV can also repair the locks.

They turned mine around fairly quickly when it broke a couple of years ago.

- Mark

[overlander63]

Originally Posted by apolaroid

Funny thing, Camping World had universal RV door knobs selling for about $20.00. Wish something like that was an option.

It is, but would require quite a bit of modification to the door, such as removing the old latch,, riveting a piece of aluminum over the hole, and installing the new latch, as well as modifying the door frame to accept the new lock.
Also, as far as the "sales job", if they told you how to fix it, and you broke it trying to fix it, there would be no repairing it at all. At least for now, there is a chance of getting it working again.

[apolaroid]

I won't be using the camping world knob, just wishful thinking on the over all cost of this repair. For right now the AS knob is functioning and will have to do for a short time longer until extra funding can have it rebuilt. I figure it has to be cheaper to rebuild it while it is working (even if not well), over fixing when its broken. Trying to find that balance of money spent to do this the right way to whats in my wallet. Anything I can do myself saves money for other things to do on both of my AS. Research on this problem scares me a bit, the poor design on the lock/handle system seems to be a problem. Putting money into it to break again concerns me, but a better answer has not presented it self. All this said, the lock and handle did last 35 years, just wish my wallet was fatter for all the things I want fixed or to upgrade.

[WestMichCamp]

What ever you do, do not have your friend try and bend the ouside handle so so that it lays flat. I am not sure if that was what you were refering to, but if you do, you will sheer off the two pins that you have highlighted on the underside of the outside latch. That appears to have happend to mine by the previous owner. Some how he got the pins out, and put new ones in, but it had to be a long time ago, since they were rusted and broken off.

[apolaroid]

No the bending was to the internal piece to catch the pin to open the door. In doing so the outer door handle no longer lays flat, but I can deal with that until the unit can be sent in at a later time for rebuild/repair. If I could figure the best way to remove and replace those one pins holding in the handle I would be all set. I am sure there are some here who could do it in like 2 mins, but for me, slow and trying to do it right are my working pace.

[debpatch]

How do you get the door latch off. I have the same problem. 77 Argosy. Do I need to remove the door?

[Inland RV Center, In]

Originally Posted by debpatch

How do you get the door latch off. I have the same problem. 77 Argosy. Do I need to remove the door?

No, you do not need to remove the door.

Remove the one screw from the outer edge of the door that holds the lock in place.

Then remove the inside handle.

Next, remove the three screws that hold the lock in place on the inside of the door.

Lastly, drill out the rivets around the lock on the inside of the door.

Flex the inside door metal away from the lock.

That will allow the inner lock shaft to clear the inside metal, so that you can now easily remove the lock.

Andy