72 Boler Door - Fiberglass RV
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Old 04-18-2006, 03:20 PM   #1
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Trailer: Boler 13 ft
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Ok here goes. I have a 72 Boler American from Wichita. The door was sagging and not fitting the opening so I remounted the hinges and the door sits square or as square as possible. ( the workmanship back then was non existant)

Anyway the door is bowed out at the top on the hinge side and fits nicely on the latch side.

My father would say you could throw a cat out at the bottom without opening the door. There is about and inch and a half gap. ( sorry i cant do the metric conversion)

Here is what I would like to know. Has anyone ever taken a saw and cut kerfs on the inside of the door from one side of the door to the other
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. sanded the interior of the door filled the kerfs with resin and then laid new fiberglass cloth over it? This allowing the repairman a way to re curve the door to fit the opening and then reglue it into place?

Here are some pics to show what I am up against. I will add the other 3 photos n seperate posts
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Old 04-18-2006, 03:36 PM   #2
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here are the remaining pictures. It takes old people a little longer to figure out how to resize photos
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Old 04-18-2006, 04:06 PM   #3
Con
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Trailer: 1977 Boler 1300
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There has been a lot of discussion on the repairing of doors on this site, some of it good fixes and some of it bad. Bolers for one, and a number of the other FG trailers have notriously bad fitting doors as they had no frames inside to hold their shape.

You can take a look at my pics on Webshots (Click on site below my signature) on how I solved my door problem or do a search for some of the other threads on this site. There are lots of ideas, you just have to decide how much you want to spend and how much work you are willing to put into it and how good do you want it to look.

http://www.fiberglassrv.com/board/index.ph...hl=Door+repairs

http://www.fiberglassrv.com/board/index.ph...opic=13544&st=0]
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Old 04-18-2006, 10:06 PM   #4
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If I were to do my door, I`d do it with the kerfs....I think that is the neat way to do it....I may do that myself in the future.....I`m of the opinion , like many others, is that it`s not the door that is the problem but the trailer shape itself sagging.....another method was to remove the square tubing on the hinge side of the door opening frame and straightening it somewhat and re attaching it....this apparently changes the shape of the trailer body at the hinge side and it conforms better to the door shape.....another option! ...Benny
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Old 04-18-2006, 10:13 PM   #5
Con
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Not true Benny! I tried that. Most of the doors flatten out at the top 16"or at the bottom 12", right in the area the bracing tube doesn't cover or do any good. I had the tube off completley and it had no bearing on the door shape at all.
Also I am not totaly convinced as others have stated that the flexing frame causes that much of a problem on the door.
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Old 04-19-2006, 09:06 AM   #6
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Well Con, others have apparently rectified the door fit by changing the contour of the square tube but I`ve never tried it myself..... Benny
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Old 04-19-2006, 02:04 PM   #7
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Trailer: Boler 1975 13 ft
California
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Well Con, others have apparently rectified the door fit by changing the contour of the square tube but I`ve never tried it myself..... Benny
That's what I did and it worked. The way the door is made it looked to me like it was most likely the body not the door that changed shape. So I took off the square chrome verticle support on the forward side of the door, put it into a vise and took out some of the bend and when I put it back it pulled the body back into the shape of the door. ( it's attached with flat head screw/bolts that were ender the rubber gasket of the door frame.

Roy
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Old 04-19-2006, 02:55 PM   #8
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I'd suggest that the 'cause' of the gap isn't nearly as important as the 'fix'.

That being said - some have fixed by flattening the doorway (including myself) and others have fixed by further curving the door. Take your pick. Whatever works and you're more comfortable doing.

My favorite fix for it (forget who did this one) was to install wooden braces at the bottom of the door that drew in a sharper curve. What I liked about it was that the owner then covered the braces with wood effectively making a magazine rack out of them. Solved the problem AND added an attractive feature all at the same time.

mkw
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Old 04-19-2006, 06:19 PM   #9
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Hi fellow Boler owner.
I'm currently renovating a '73 Boler with exactly the same door sag problem. Mine also had a 3" open stress crack on the top hinge side of the door frame. This caused the door to sag 3" out of the frame.To do the reair I removed the door and hinges. I built a 1/8" X 1" flat bar frame out of mild steel to attach inside the door jam.I bent it to the curve and fibreglassed it in place .I also used 2" X 1/4" X 10" aluminum flat bar (curved to the contour) and mounted 2 to reenforce the door hinge area. It made the door jam 3/4" thick but adds support for hinges and locks. I remounted the door and found a 1" gap at the bottom. I marked the door where the gap started under the bottom hinge and under the lock area. I drew 9 parallel lines across the door and removed it. I put the door on a table a used a small air grinder to cut 1/8" "saw kerfs" on 3 of my lines about 4" apart on the inside as you have suggested .I was going to do all of them but was able to
close the gaps enough to get the inch I needed. I used heat from a heat gun and a small blow torch to relax the fibreglass. A friend of mine who is an expert says doing this with heat may damage the old fibreglass but I couldn't get it to stay in place any other way.
Once I had the door bent I remounted it and wedged it in place from the outside.Working inside I used longstrand glass and patched my kerfs on the whole bottom half .Before it was set up I got out and wedged it in place again.About an hour later it was hard and held the form I needed.
Now for the words of caution. Outside I have 3 ugly burn lines to patch and repaint.The bend isn't round anymore and will require filling and repair.
Inside the core of the door is a pink foam filler that may burn out so you can't have too much heat. Finally make sure you cut the inside skin on the edge right out so it won't bind.
There are no guarentees to my repair but 4 days later it's still holding it's shape.The whole job took all last weekend but so far so good.

I'll post photos later if I can figure out how .Unfortunately I got so involved in the job I didn't take anyphotos during all that "fun".
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Old 04-21-2006, 11:18 AM   #10
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My door wasnt too bad until i had a better look at it. The body had definitely sagged on the hinge side. It cant sag on the latch side because the closet holds it. I flattened the steel brace and voila.. Fixed door. I will probably have to weld in a reinforcement as i dont think that little chrome tube has the strength. Easy fix though.

As for the latch. Someone was complaining about their door requiring manually turning the handle to close the door. My door was the same way. I took the latch apart and weakened the spring and greases the inside.( the latch BTW needs to be drilled out to open it up. There are a couple of plug welds holding the latch together) I also took the handle/lock out and loosed it up a bit. It didnt turn very freely. Now my door clicks shut like a door should.
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Old 04-22-2006, 06:34 AM   #11
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Well like a BAD COLD I am back. All Boler doors are not created equal. Seems Wichita Boler doors were the creation of who ever was on the door line for a day.

I tried the 2 pieces of angled aluminum and threaded rods. Did a great job of bringing the bottom in, but the middle of the door ( near the latch) bowed out 3 inches. Talk about making me cranky. I liked Cons idea but time is pressing me. So I called my painter and fiberglass friend and he has some ideas that may fix the problem.

I also called Scamp, they are always fun to talk to, and the guy in parts assurred me all was not lost. If the door cannot be fixed, they have new doors that will come darn close to fitting $365.00 ( for the door) as Scamp bought the molds from WEichita Boler.

I guess by next weekend I will know if my fiberglass man can make the door all ity should be or if Scamp and I will become even closer friends. The saga goes on
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Old 04-22-2006, 10:35 AM   #12
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That is not cheap to replace the door. I rebuilt mine for a third of that.
Also there is no guarentee that a new door is going to fit perfectly either. I am finding that no two body profiles are identical. The way I did it means that my door is a custom fit to my body profile (The Boler that is) and if I mounted it on another Boler body it would not likely fit as good. Does any of this make sense?

I had two things to contend with:
One was that when the Boler was owned by someone else previously, someone attempted to break into the trailer. They grabbed the top of the door and pulled on it breaking it across at the bottom of the window. The repair was very poor, reglassed only on thei nside skin without roughening the FG surface to get a good bond and pop riviting alum. angles over the patching inside each side of the window. Every time you open or closed the door it almost flapped like a bird. When I cut the two skins apart I ended up with a number of separate pieces, it all fell apart. In my estimation the only fix was to install a alum. frame custom bent to match the body and give the door vertical strength which it lacked with only the 5 wood spaces in it.

The second thing was that like so many of these doors I have looked at is they tend lose their curvature at the bottom leaving a big enough gap for road water etc. to get in. Removing and reshaping the chrome tube was not doing to help me there at all as it ends about 14" off the floor at the top of the seat. So the inside alum. frame solved two problems for me at the same time.

I studied this problem quite a while before I decided on how to approch it. Most the of the fixes in these threads will work, it depends how bad you door is and how much effort you are willing to put into. Mine was not near as difficult as I anticipated it was going to be.
The end cost was just over $100 Can and less than 20 hrs.time. The cost covers the 1"x20' square alum. welding, fiberglass kit, Bondo, primer, paint and bonding agent.

The door is so solid now when it closes is has that nice solid "Snick" like a car door sound.
I love that sound! Aslo, no more leaks around the door! That is another big plus.
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