sliding door woes....

[pionte]

Advice required regarding sliding door problems....

My sliding door has been gradually getting worse over the last year, when I bought the van it was necessary to give the back of the door a little nudge when shutting to make it close, then recently i found that even when locked it was possible to open the door by moving the handle even slightly.

So tonight I thought I would take a look see at what was happening,

Firstly I checked that all the door runners where properly greased and that all the roller bearing where still intact and had not disintegrated, they where all fine so I applied lots of new grease, then i took the door panel of and checked the operation of the locking mechanism, again all seems fine, next I adjusted the striker bolt, I found that If I moved the bolt as far in ward as possible the door would shut great, and the shut lines where perfect, however the slightest touch on the handle even when locked would cause the door to open.

I noticed that the catch mechanism ( the brass hook shaped bit ) is only operating onto the first catch, if I remove the striker bolt and push it into the catch then it will operate onto the second catch, I am guessing that this is how it should work? but after refitting the striker bolt, irrespective of where I position the striker bolt I cant get the catch to operate onto the second latch. Even on the loosest setting the door wont operate the second latch of the catch, and this leaves a huge gap at the rear of the door.

So I am wondering if the catch is worn? or am I missing some adjustment somewhere? When I manually push the striker bolt into the catch onto the second latch then It stays there and doesnt 'pop' open again so the actual catch is holding .


Any help appreciated

[pionte]

fixed.

Judging by the lack of replies it looks like this wasnt a common problem that lots of people have or have had, so i wont bother spending hours typing out what I found, if you wanna know then I will explain

[ninja.turtle007]

Mine quite often bounces back when I try to shut it. Any tips would be great.

[dirtygertie]

Glad you got it sorted
I have to run with mine to shut it - so any tips would be appreciated

[fullsunian]

fixed.

Judging by the lack of replies it looks like this wasnt a common problem that lots of people have or have had, so i wont bother spending hours typing out what I found, if you wanna know then I will explain

Please don't keep it to yourself, if somebody knew how to sort it then I'm sure they would of helped you. I for one didn't know your answer...maybe its your turn to help somebody
IAN

[Cruz]

Spill the beanz

[weldore]

i bet the duvet was stuck in the door

[pionte]

I had assumed that I must just have been unlucky and no one else had had this problem,

I actually has 2 problems, the first was that when trying to close the door it would either ' bounce back ' open or only close onto the first latch unless i leant on the back of the door,
And the second was that when closed and locked the slightest movement of the handle would operate the catch and open the door, even 1mm of handle movement.

I checked all the roller bearings, I had heard stories that these can break up and disintegrate, but they where fine so I just applied copious amounts of light grease to them and the runners.
I took of the door card and checked the operation of the the mechanism for locking, that all seemed to be working, what I did find though was that the slightest movement of the connecting cable would release the catch, try as I might I could not find any adjustment, so a bit of lateral thinking was required.... what I needed to do was make the connecting cable from the door handle to the latch about 5mm longer, this would allow the handle to move until the lock stopped it but wasnt enough movement to release the latch.
The cable is terminated by a ring which fits over a nipple and is held in place by a c clip , so what I did was to remove the ring, place a cable tie around the nipple and refit the c clip to hold it in place the loop the cable tie through the ring connected to the cable and adjust until I had the necessary extra 5mm or so of play, and voila the door handle/lock now works perfectly.

I realise that this may be a 'bodge' and it may last a week , month or years but until I figure out a better ' fix ' it will have to do.

The second problem of the door bouncing open I attacked by cleaning the latch mechanism and applying lots of WD40, then I adjusted the door stricker bolt untill when closed the catch was able to operat onto the second latch and the shut lines where perfect, fan bloody tastic I though, came inside and treated myself to a large beer....

Then tonight I went out to the van and b*gger me the door was back to its old trick of bouncing open again and no matter where I adjusted the striker catch it made no bloody difference, so I came in and treated myself to a large beer... How can 24 hours and no use have this affect? The only differeance between yesterday and this evening is the temperature, I am wondering if this could have something to do with it? sometimes grease getting thicker at lower temps can cause locks to get sticky... but I had cleaned out the old gunk with lots of WD40.... one to ponder.

So I am back to square one..... I have been trying to find any referance to this problem, as yet I cant find out anything, I will look over on the Brickyard later, I am leaning toward the problem being the catch/latch mechanism being worn so I will try to locate and order a new one, If I do find the definitive answer I will post it.

Mart.

[smokeyjon]

I think the catch at the back of the door just wears out. My old door used to stay shut, but frequently pop off the 'properly shut' setting so that it was slightly open at the back. I was told that the only option was to replace the catch at the back of the door. Pretty easy from memory...

[pionte]

I think the catch at the back of the door just wears out. My old door used to stay shut, but frequently pop off the 'properly shut' setting so that it was slightly open at the back. I was told that the only option was to replace the catch at the back of the door. Pretty easy from memory...

yes I think that this will solve the problem, I am struggling to find where to get one from tho !

[smokeyjon]

I'm sure someone'll list a 'breaking van' post pretty soon on here or brickyard! I've has some success in the wanted section of brick-yard before too - some of the guys with A LOT of tat lying around seem to check it now and again! Good luck!