Dolphin Lungren Posted December 29, 2010 Share Posted December 29, 2010 Enough water and snow and ice has deteriorated my poor Dolphins main side entrance door and luckily it is stuck shut but what I am wondering is where do I go from here? My wife and I are tired of crawling in through the front doors. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meteor Posted December 30, 2010 Share Posted December 30, 2010 I'm a newbie, too. Our door was loose and rattled. Turns out it had been re-glued with a substance which had really screwed the whole thing up. We had to replace it with a new door. Right around $600. Boy, that was a big bite, but what a difference in travel noise! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
86rader Posted December 31, 2010 Share Posted December 31, 2010 my door was falling apart. i took it off the hinges sat it on a table and took it apart. The would was still in decent enough shape, but the screws holding it together were rusty. i bought new, slightly longer, one size bigger screws and rebuilt it. Works like new now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maineah Posted December 31, 2010 Share Posted December 31, 2010 They make a cheap house core door from the big box store look good. They are nothing more then a bunch of 1X1's covered with 1/4" plywood with a piece of aluminium to finish it off. I made a new one but it has dents in the aluminium skin because the plywood was stuck to it and it's so thin just getting the plywood off dented it. all the wood at the bottom was rotted so I had to redo the entire thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek up North Posted December 31, 2010 Share Posted December 31, 2010 I know that the Scottish blood in me would have me trying to rebuild the door myself before dropping $600 on a new one, but that might be kind of hard for you since, as far as I can tell from your blog, you're traveling the countryside. Not the kind of repair you can undertake in the parking lot of Wally World. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dolphinite no longer here Posted December 31, 2010 Share Posted December 31, 2010 Enough water and snow and ice has deteriorated my poor Dolphins main side entrance door and luckily it is stuck shut but what I am wondering is where do I go from here? My wife and I are tired of crawling in through the front doors. Thanks! If you're handy, repairing/rebuilding the door isn't all that difficult. But you will need to stop for a while where you can do the work. Also, instead of buying a new door, try looking in RV salvage yards for used ones. You might get lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
85mirage Posted January 1, 2011 Share Posted January 1, 2011 I like the salvage yard idea! I just rebuilt my entire door and it wasn't easy. I bought sheets of frp from lows and cut them to width. One good one bad. Cut and planed new wood for three sides and lock assembly. One side of door frame is all metal. Glued old strofoam to new frp. Screwed new wood to old metal frame to put it all back together. I think new frp is thicker than what they originally used cause it wasn't easy. Screwed back into door frame and it wouldnt close! On my door frame catch i have a removable steel peice which sticks out just alittle to catch door. Well i just need that little bit. Looks like i have to remove entire door frame to remove that piece. HA ha So lesson look for one one the salvage yard! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek up North Posted January 1, 2011 Share Posted January 1, 2011 The salvage yard solution sounds the simplest IF the doors interchange. I've no idea how standard the door sizes are. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flatspin Posted January 2, 2011 Share Posted January 2, 2011 Enough water and snow and ice has deteriorated my poor Dolphins main side entrance door and luckily it is stuck shut but what I am wondering is where do I go from here? My wife and I are tired of crawling in through the front doors. Thanks! I'm a big fan of the guys at RV Doctor George in Sacramento, if you're still on the West Coast. They have a lot of spares/salvage items and do pretty decent work if you need help getting it put in. -andrew Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bajadulce Posted January 2, 2011 Share Posted January 2, 2011 RV Doctor in Sacramento is the biggest ripoff west of the Mississippi. I'd avoid them like the plague; worthless resource. General E-bay will offer far better and bigger selections of merchandise. A day at RV George: I took a ~150 mile trip to RV George's in Sacramento today and picked up my 4 jacks and spent about an hour rummaging through their windows until I found one that semi-fit my desired dimensions. A used roof vent/escape hatch found its way into my shopping cart. It would go great over the bed and thought why not. At the cash register I got rung up for $420.00. $60.00 bucks per jack, $115 for the window, and $65 for the hatch. I only had $400 bucks cash on me and asked if the remaining 20 bucks could be put on my credit card. Fine, except the redneck behind the register was having huge difficulties fumblling with the e-transaction and I finally just offered to go to a bank and get the remaining 20 bucks. I ended up stopping at a Homedepot and picked up some more glass resin. They allow you to withdraw money with your purchase as do most grocery stores which saves you that stupid atm transaction fee if you can't find your particular bank branch. Anywho, when I got back to RV George, my hatch was gone and was told that it couldn't be sold for that price. The actual price was now double or even triple; can't recall now. At that point the window seemed way over priced to me as well so I asked for my money back on that as well. In my younger days I would have asked for all of my money back and told them to shove the jacks just out of principle! So I traveled all day to Sacramento to overpay for some used jacks that probably are laying all over SanJose if I were to spend just a little bit of effort looking for.. oh well the burgers at In-in-Out were worth it all. So all I can say is RV George is a SCAM ran by a hillbilly transplant from the MidWest. YEE-Haw! I'm sure RV George won't miss my business and I wouldn't recommend this dump to anyone.Eventually, I got a BRAND new window on Ebay for $15 bucks delivered to my door step as well as a beautiful compartment door $20 and a brand new spanking lock for my door $40. All the merchandise was far superior to the junk offered at RV George and about 1/4 the price. So in a way glad the bum behind the counter couldn't figure out how to use the credit card machine to ring me up the missing 20 bucks. Ha! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dolphin Lungren Posted January 12, 2011 Author Share Posted January 12, 2011 thanks as always guys...as someone else said, since I am on the road with no permanent home it looks like the wife and I will be settling for living with it right now. I can say I got it unstuck so at least it opens and closes again... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
86rader Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 i did my initial repair on mine on a picnic table at an rv site on an air force base in south dakota. you could try the same. i suggest you consider removing screws one at a time, carefully. a good trick is to put toothpicks with wood glue on them into the hole, then replace the screw. this should give the screw a better bite on the wood. you might also consider going to a slightly longer screw if it looks as though there is enough wood to do so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek up North Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 Head over to Quartzite or the Slabs. Probably lots of people ready, willing and able to lend a hand as you rebuilt it the 'in the field'.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dolphin Lungren Posted January 26, 2011 Author Share Posted January 26, 2011 I know that the Scottish blood in me would have me trying to rebuild the door myself before dropping $600 on a new one, but that might be kind of hard for you since, as far as I can tell from your blog, you're traveling the countryside. Not the kind of repair you can undertake in the parking lot of Wally World. hahaha, true. I just rolled up to my parents' house for a few days and since the door exploded last week on a trip to Oklahoma, I have no option but to go for it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linda s Posted January 27, 2011 Share Posted January 27, 2011 PPL motorhomes parts has a door I think will fit for $332. They are in Texas so if your in Oklahoma shipping shouldn't be too bad. Take a look http://www.pplmotorhomes.com/parts/rv-locks/rv-entry-doors.htm Linda S Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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