Ground Breaking Discovery in Door Lock Engineering
DMaxer said
02:02 PM Apr 14, 2021
Further to my last gripping challenges with the Camec door lock that would not lock I have had a major breakthrough. So what I hear you say. Listen to this;
No matter what I tried the door would not lock. It would lock and unlock if it was opened and I depressed the little safety button manually but no matter what I did, from padding the striker plate to adjusting the striker plate forward, nothing, zilch, compete failure. I then sat inside the van with a torch on the inside of the lock seeing if the safety button would hit the striker plate and it did. Then the breakthrough eureka moment came.
The door has a top latch, middle latch where the lock is and then the bottom latch. The problem was the bottom latch not engaging properly. If that does not engage properly then the door cannot be locked inside or outside even though the middle latch is where the lock is. I gently pushed on the bottom of the door and then did an adjustment of the bottom striker plate and all is well.
Thanks so much for all your advice and tolerance with my cerebral challenges.
Mike196 said
02:35 PM Apr 14, 2021
Nice to see I'm not the only one that "learns the hard way"! Had a similar instance with our previous van, finally worked out you had to push the door in a bit while you turned the lock mechanism.
Tony Bev said
04:19 PM Apr 14, 2021
Hi DMaxer
It would be good if you could put up a pic, so the laymen (and ladies), would know what to look for
Craig1 said
04:41 PM Apr 14, 2021
That would be " lay lady lay "
peter67 said
05:39 PM Apr 14, 2021
Brilliant song!
Silver66 said
11:27 PM May 9, 2021
We had a similar issue when we camped last week, Then I realised the van was on a slight lean! and when I chocked the side the was low it wasn't perfectly level and jammed the lock and we had to push in the bottom of the door to get it to lock.
Once it was level it worked fine again.
Heres me thinking I was going mad nd then read this post and realise it happens to the best of us!
DMaxer said
06:08 AM May 10, 2021
Glad some of my issues were of assistance. I have found that most of the things I have had go wrong someone on this forum has experienced it also and found a solution.
PeterD said
07:59 AM May 10, 2021
Silver66 wrote:
Then I realised the van was on a slight lean! and when I chocked the side the was low it wasn't perfectly level and jammed the lock and we had to push in the bottom of the door to get it to lock. Once it was level it worked fine again.
Seems like the predictive text got in the way in that sentence and it does not read correctly. However, it leads me to a question - Did you use the corner steadies to level your van?
When levelling your van you should do all the levelling by lifting the wheel on blocks for side to side levelling and the jockey wheel for fore and aft levelling. Caravan chassis are flexible and because of that, the weight of the van should only be carried on the wheels and the drawbar. If you support the van elsewhere you will distort the body of the van. You ably demonstrated that, you distorted the van sufficiently to prevent the door from locking.
You should only put enough pressure on your corner steadies to provide some stability in the van.
Further to my last gripping challenges with the Camec door lock that would not lock I have had a major breakthrough. So what I hear you say. Listen to this;
No matter what I tried the door would not lock. It would lock and unlock if it was opened and I depressed the little safety button manually but no matter what I did, from padding the striker plate to adjusting the striker plate forward, nothing, zilch, compete failure. I then sat inside the van with a torch on the inside of the lock seeing if the safety button would hit the striker plate and it did. Then the breakthrough eureka moment came.
The door has a top latch, middle latch where the lock is and then the bottom latch. The problem was the bottom latch not engaging properly. If that does not engage properly then the door cannot be locked inside or outside even though the middle latch is where the lock is. I gently pushed on the bottom of the door and then did an adjustment of the bottom striker plate and all is well.
Thanks so much for all your advice and tolerance with my cerebral challenges.
Nice to see I'm not the only one that "learns the hard way"! Had a similar instance with our previous van, finally worked out you had to push the door in a bit while you turned the lock mechanism.
It would be good if you could put up a pic, so the laymen (and ladies), would know what to look for
Once it was level it worked fine again.
Heres me thinking I was going mad nd then read this post and realise it happens to the best of us!
Seems like the predictive text got in the way in that sentence and it does not read correctly. However, it leads me to a question - Did you use the corner steadies to level your van?
When levelling your van you should do all the levelling by lifting the wheel on blocks for side to side levelling and the jockey wheel for fore and aft levelling. Caravan chassis are flexible and because of that, the weight of the van should only be carried on the wheels and the drawbar. If you support the van elsewhere you will distort the body of the van. You ably demonstrated that, you distorted the van sufficiently to prevent the door from locking.
You should only put enough pressure on your corner steadies to provide some stability in the van.