Damaged/scratched basement door

Flash · 03-30-2020, 06:21 AM

So after performing a stupid human trick that badly scratched one of the doors to the basement I thought that I would just simply remove the door and take it to a refinisher to have it repaired and refinished. But when I opened the door to take it off the hinges it looks like it is actually riveted, not screwed, to the hinge. Really?! What were they thinking? What could possibly go wrong?

So if I drill the rivets to remove them and have the door repaired is there any reason why I couldn't screw it back on to the hinge? I do have access to a rivet gun and could use some cherry max rivets but that just seems like huge overkill.

If I can't remove the door the alternative is to take the entire coach to someplace that can repair it and that sounds really expensive compared to what I want to do.

Any suggestions?

imnprsd · 03-30-2020, 07:03 AM

I was under the impression the door hinge bolts were located under the trim-rail.

Flash: Can you send pictures. And are you trying to remove the hinge on the door side or the RV wall side?

My RV is a 2004 Itasca "Horizon" 40AD and I have a different chassis than you have. ...But I also have a similar door problem -- and I would like to get my cargo door repaired by removing it so I can more easily take it to a body shop for repair. So I will be watching this thread with much interest.

Flash · 03-30-2020, 07:31 AM

I am trying to remove the door from the hinges. Here are a couple of pics

Morich · 03-30-2020, 09:33 AM

Yes, RV are made to be put together light, quick and easy, just as cars are, but it does often lead to repairs being more expensive. Remember when you used to bend the bumper and just replace the metal sticking out? Not much of that any more.
Each door will be different but I might guess that there is not enough good solid material to make screws hold for long term.
On my doors, the rivet head works while a screw head would likely be too high. Material too thin to allow for countersinking.
Yes, it is a problem.
On more thinking? Would a possible solution be to drill out the rivets and then when replacing, one might look at removing a corner section of the interior foam, place a block of wood to let the screws grab?

tderonne · 03-30-2020, 09:37 AM

The hinges are riveted to the doors, but screwed to the body. You have to remove the trim molding above the doors to get at the screws (as mentioned).

This thread may help:
How do you? Cargo door trim?l

Wayne M · 03-30-2020, 11:44 AM

I took my 2015 QD to the repair place and left it there. Door, and adjacent 12" square trim for slide rail was $1200 to fix and paint.

Flash · 03-30-2020, 12:39 PM

Thank you all! I am headed down to our storage garage to look for the screws on the other side.

And yikes Wayne! That is exactly what I am trying to avoid!

99dart · 03-30-2020, 06:03 PM

Well... Be glad you didn't crack the rear "bumper" fiberglass. $450 deductible and $3200 later, the bumper looks good as new. UGH!!

Flash · 03-30-2020, 06:21 PM

Thanks again! Once I removed the trim piece, which was NOT intuitive, removing the doors was a piece of cake. At least once I found the correct torx head.

To remove the trim piece I had to also figure out how to get to the hold down screws. Of course those are phillips head screws (why be consistant?) Of course they are way up out of sight and at an almost impossible angle to get even a right angle screwdriver on. To get to some of them I had to figure out how to lift up the wheel well cover. Six(6) screws, 3 in front and 3 in the rear. Also torx. Why aren't these camlocks (1/4 turn)? You expect someone who comes out to change a flat tire to have a torx wrench?

Anyway I learned a lot and will now get a couple of quotes if anyone is working. At the moment we are under a stay-at-home recommendation and critical workers only order from our governor so I stretched it by going to the storage garage. But I was alone and didn't cough on myself so I should be OK. I suspect the doors will sit in my garage until this COVID-19 thing works its way through.

I also took a picture of the paint color code on the drivers door so whoever does it should be able to pretty much match it.

We aren't going anywhere until things calm down anyway so no harm done.

Flash · 03-30-2020, 06:23 PM

Oops, here is the photo

tderonne · 03-30-2020, 06:57 PM

Great progress, hopefully you can get the door fixed.

Had mine apart about like that when I had to fix the fender due to a flat tire and blowout. Tedious, but saved me money fixing it myself.

deucehotrods · 04-06-2020, 12:37 AM

One thing to remember is that paint rarely matches what is on your doors already due to age, fading and the paint the factory used that particular day on your coach. Metallics can vary with temperature, gun settings and air pressure settings. Usually when doing auto body repairs in base coat/clear coat, it is necessary to "blend" the base coat into the unrepaired panels so that the slight mismatch of paint is not noticeable. If a slight mismatch doesn't bother you, then proceed. I can't tell from your pics to see what the adjacent panels are, but for a good match you could remove them and bring them with the other panels so the body shop can blend into the panels on either side or at least use one of them to try and get a good match. The reason it costs a lot to repair and paint things these days, is paint and materials are very expensive and good body and paint men are hard to find. I did some similar base coat, clear coat repairs myself on my last motorhome and two quarts each of primer, base coat and clear coat plus catalyst and thinner was over $400, and this was the least expensive non-name brand materials I could find.

jabass · 04-06-2020, 12:23 PM

Hope you figured it out by now. I had same problem and found I had to loosen up the edging that runs along the side of RV above the compartment door. Then you will see small screws that actually hole the compartment in place..they are over each of the hinges. Now if the door is bungled up badly and the price to fix is crazy. You might want to contact visone salvage in Kentucky to see if they have the door that matches your need.

Jim_HiTek · 04-10-2020, 05:49 PM

Really late to this party...I had a damaged basement door on my '02 and as mentioned, you have to remove the trim above the door in order to remove it easily. Drilling out the rivets isn't the way.

I did write up a blog article about doing mine, along with some pictures, I can be long winded and the actual trim removal to get the door off is around the middle of the article: Body Work - Basement door removal

Flash · 04-10-2020, 07:24 PM

Thank you all. I did get the trim piece removed. Removing the doors was then easy. Now they are leaning against a wall in my hangar waiting for a body shop, any body shop, to reopen. I am slightly tempted to do some of the repair myself but they will do it better than I will. I haven't done such work in a couple of decades.