Trillium door lock

[Shelley Brinacombe]

On the maiden trip with my 1975 Trillium, the door came open while driving. It was locked at the time and thank goodness, no damage. Anyone else experience the same problem ???? Other than replacing the door knob and lock, any ideas on fixing this ????

[Ken C]

If you do end up needing a new one, i think i saw them for sale at the trilliumrv parts page. Good luck.

[Alistair Camelford]

I replaced the original with a Trimark Lock . There is a thread on this. Cost about $175 with shipping and taxes to Canada...should be $30 or $40 less for the USA
It is a super tough piece of machinery!
Alistair and Inge in The Road Toad

[BCDave]

Same thing kept happening on my Boler. Door would be latched and locked. A half hour into the trip, I'd see it in the mirror, hanging open. Wound up using a bungee cord to run diagonally across the door from the upper hinge to the wheel-well to make sure the door couldn't open more than a half inch or so en route, until I could get home & fix it. In my case, it wasn't the latch, it was the striker that was worn out. Made up a new one by bending up an old house door striker and installing that right over the original.

[Doug Mager]

Dave's right (as usual) most often an unwanted door opening can be traced to a bad (or mal-aligned) striker which the first place I'd look into and repair before I even considered a new/used/other lockset.

[Reid Larsen]

Ditto on Dave's latch suggestion. I made a new strike for our '78 Trill and bolted it in place instead of rivets with a reinforced plate on the back side because the loosened rivets had worn the fiberglass so badly. I also took the lock apart and cleaned and lubed it. Big difference in the way it latches now. After more than 30 years mechanical devices sometimes need a little love and attention.

[David Tilston]

Had this happen lots on the trip I just got back from. I lost the middle screw on the trailer side of the top hinge. The door sagged enough that the latch must have bounced out from behind the striker plate. My wife bungied the inside handle to the closet.

My door never has fit right. I will be pulling out all the windows and fittings to paint my trailer. I expect to put allot of work into making the door fit better.

[woodm]

These door issues remind me of an incident about a year ago whereby my wife, Linda, attempted to open the door on our '76 Trillium after a lengthy and albeit rough road trip only to have same fall completely off onto the ground at her feet!! After ensuring that she was OK, I must have laughed for an hour...spent the next 2 days of our holiday mixing epoxy and filling the cavity where the hinges screw to the shell. This repair seems to have held well, so far at least.