Foretravel Owners' Forum For owners and Fans of Foretravel Motorcoaches September 11, 2025 ...

Bay Door Locking Mechanism

January 30, 2015, 11:28:27 pm

All the bay doors open and close effortlessly except for the utility door.  To open I have to pull harder on the hande and when I drop it down and push in on the top I end up having to push on it 2 or 3 times before it will latch.

After reading previous posts on the subject it sounds like it is just a matter of adjusting the position of the locking pins on each side of the door frame.  The problem is I'm not sure if I should move the pin location more to the outside or further in so the door latching mechanism catches with just a slight amount of pressure like when I close all the other bus style doors on the coach?  My thinking is if I adjust the pins towards the outside, rather than further in the bay it would be easier for the latch to catch and close on the pin.  However, if I'm wrong my concern is It could result in not being able to get the door open because the latch would not release.

Then again,  maybe the problem has nothing to do with the pin location, rather it is with the amount of slack in the door handle cables.

Help on what to do would be appreciated

Gary

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Re: Bay Door Locking Mechanism

Reply #1 – January 31, 2015, 12:01:20 am

Could you put masking tape over the striker plate and then, without exerting a lot of pressure on the door or the bolt actuator,  gently try to latch the door until you get witness marks on the tape?

Or put some light grease on the latch, with some graphite (grind up some pencil lead) on the contact surface.

Once you see how much and how far you are off location adjustment direction is easy to do.

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Re: Bay Door Locking Mechanism

Reply #2 – January 31, 2015, 08:39:46 am

Gary,

Misalignment of the utility door is a classic symptom of bulkhead separation.  Have you been diligent checking the bulkhead bolts?

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Re: Bay Door Locking Mechanism

Reply #3 – January 31, 2015, 10:55:25 pm

I've found a few things that cause the bay door latch problems.

First moving them outward typically makes them easier to close with the downside of the gasket does not compress as much and some water may find its way in.  For me its been the upper pins that needed adjustment, at least if its a bus style door.  If you are worried about locking yourself out, just tie a string to the latch releases, can always pull on that to release it.

Second as the bay gasket ages, it is simply less flexible and requires more of a slam to close the door, especially the bus style ones, the standard hinge ones I've had less of a problem with.

Third is the gas struts, some of those were to set to high and Foretravel lowered the pressure on them to allow them to close with a bit more umph ... I think it was a 10 or 20 PSI reduction ... going from memory with is always dangerous, I think they use 90 lb ones in place of the 100 or 110 pound ones.  You can see what you have and find ones with say 10 lb lower force and replace them as well.  If you decided to do this, its not to bad but there are some tricks to replace them.

Fourth is the latch itself.  Some time back we repalced all ours with new ones (for the chrome look) and those were easier to release, so I expect that lubricant (grease) on the latch itself can help.

Ours close pretty well these days, but I still do the Foretravel bump on each door before I take flight.

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