Exterior door hinge

[Airhead2018]

Anyone have this happen? The nuts that attach to the screws that hold the door hinge on are gone. I noticed the hinge was lose so I tightened up the top screw but the bottom just spun. I took the top screw out to put some lock tire on it and that but fell away. WTF!

[uraljohn]

Ok. Calm down. Straight forward fix. On the inside of the coach there is a trim strip running down the hinge side of the door. Remove trim strip. Locate where the hinge bolts come thru from the outside of coach. Put a bunch of blue painters tape around the area of the hinge bolts to protect aluminum skin. Get a 1" hole saw. Very carefully (measure twice or three times) and mark where your going to drill holes to access the hinge bolts where they come thru from outside. Drill holes. Carefully install new NY-LOCK nuts on hinge bolts. You probably should put a flat washer on bolt before threading on new NY-LOCK nuts. Tighten it all up. Check for proper door closure. Reinstall trim strip covering the holes you drilled for access.

This happens. The original nuts are not supported inside the door frame. You may want to do the bottom hinge bolts as a preventative measure now that you know how to access the nuts. Good luck. Happy travels

[Airhead2018]

Originally Posted by uraljohn

Ok. Calm down. Straight forward fix. On the inside of the coach there is a trim strip running down the hinge side of the door. Remove trim strip. Locate where the hinge bolts come thru from the outside of coach. Put a bunch of blue painters tape around the area of the hinge bolts to protect aluminum skin. Get a 1" hole saw. Very carefully (measure twice or three times) and mark where your going to drill holes to access the hinge bolts where they come thru from outside. Drill holes. Carefully install new NY-LOCK nuts on hinge bolts. You probably should put a flat washer on bolt before threading on new NY-LOCK nuts. Tighten it all up. Check for proper door closure. Reinstall trim strip covering the holes you drilled for access.



This happens. The original nuts are not supported inside the door frame. You may want to do the bottom hinge bolts as a preventative measure now that you know how to access the nuts. Good luck. Happy travels

Thank you! I looked that up on the forum and it’s a nice write up. My anger management wasn’t working all that well apparently. Truth is this Airstream knows about this poor engineering issue but lets us have a breakdown first, so we get to deal with it on the road. I could have fixed this already but we are under warranty and Airstream prefers a mobile tech to do it. And so we wait.

[uraljohn]

Since you can not move the AS they are going to send someone from a close dealership? I did not know this service was available. Learn something new everyday. How long of a wait?

If possible, watch how the Tech fixes this and give us an update. I would be very interested if they use some other method. I would have the Tech do the other hinge at the same time. May be a charge for that but you will never have to worry. After watch procedure you may feel OK doing second hinge yourself.

Glad to learn your are one step closer to getting this resolved. Happy travels.

[twobikes]

Good advice on doing both hinges while you have the trim off and the hole saw handy.

I found That having a LONG needle nose pliers
made it easier to dig out all the sealant nestled around the missing nut.

[uncle_bob]

Hi

Good luck getting a mobile tech out to do the work. At least when we have been in similar situations that never worked out.

Bob

[Airhead2018]

Surprisingly after the wife contacted AS then Couchnet we were surprised that they would have a tech there in about 2 hours. So bring it on we say! When the tech shows up he’s looking for a semi truck not an AS which I found out after I flagged him down. Nice guy but he had no clue about how to fix the door so I explained what needed to be done and he followed my suggestions after running out of his own options. Long story short it was secured and we went on our way. All in all a good experience but the finished product left some visible holes in the wall.

[uraljohn]

Glad to hear you are back in business. Hope my instructions were accurate. Sorry to hear that there is some of the repair hole visible.

Now you know the inner workings of how these hinges are fastened. In the future you may be able to save somebody else the pain of going through this. Happy travels.

[rgwatkin]

Door hinges getting loose is a common problem, mostly driven by the fact that AS put a soft intermediate material between the hinge and the trailer. This is to prevent corrosion but within a few years of new, the intermediate compresses and hinge get loose and door sags. The process of tightening the bolt is as described above, ie remove trim piece and drill 1" hole. I had to remove some other aluminum channel ridge near the nut also to be able to get the socket on the nut enough. AS needs to come up a harder material to insulate the hinge from the surface aluminum.

[Airhead2018]

Originally Posted by uraljohn

Glad to hear you are back in business. Hope my instructions were accurate. Sorry to hear that there is some of the repair hole visible.



Now you know the inner workings of how these hinges are fastened. In the future you may be able to save somebody else the pain of going through this. Happy travels.

Thanks for your help it was invaluable!

[Aerowood]

This is just another example of poor Airstream engineering. Probably cost 2 maybe 3 dollars to install captive nuts.
Airstream should have installed them from the very beginning.