Hood Latch issue - Page 3

wyocamper · 03-31-2022, 09:31 PM

I realize this is an old thread, but..... I was about 15-20 miles from home today after our spring break trip and heard a thumping noise from the front after a truck passed us. I pulled off at the next exit and looked all over for something loose and was about to go back inside when I gave the hood a tug just to see. Sure enough the passenger side was loose, so I opened it up and found the bracket completely gone. I'm going to drive that section of I-80 tomorrow just to see if I can spot it laying on the side of the highway, but I don't expect much luck. The driver side is kind of loose as well.

I remembered this thread, and after reading it again I'm kind of leaning toward the "bolt it on" solution. I'll probably have some questions after I've had a chance to look at it some more tomorrow.

Jim_HiTek · 03-31-2022, 09:35 PM

My 6-32 SS screw solution is still holding firm everywhere I used them front and rear of the RV. And no cracks, no rust, no deformation of the fiberglass. Real happy with how easy it was to do too. Only took minutes, not days of prep, grinding, sanding and clamping.

But, to each his own.

Wyatt · 03-31-2022, 10:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim_HiTek

My 6-32 SS screw solution is still holding firm everywhere I used them front and rear of the RV. And no cracks, no rust, no deformation of the fiberglass. Real happy with how easy it was to do too. Only took minutes, not days of prep, grinding, sanding and clamping.

But, to each his own.

I looked on your blog, but didn’t easily find a link to that fix. Can you proffer one? I’m curious. Thanks!

Jim_HiTek · 03-31-2022, 10:56 PM

Sure thing...this is the main page for that grouping of fixes, the Body Work...Front, and Body Work...Rear are the articles that show the work using the SS screws.

It's been years now since I did the work on the rear of the RV and still holding fast. Not as long on the front but also years and no problems whatever with the fixes.

Edbehl · 03-31-2022, 11:55 PM

I used stainless steel shutter bolts with wide flat heads. drilled through the existing bracket holes and painted the bolt beads to match. Three years ago. Problem solved

deckape · 04-01-2022, 09:07 AM

On my Forza I had the same problem .Hood latches were coming loose . Bolted thru with SS bolts nuts washers . Heads were hidden by hood . Stayed put when we had front in wreak. Remove brakets as hood had been destroyed.

deckape · 04-01-2022, 09:20 AM

On replacement of front end Winnebago still uses the glue to hold brackets on to fiberglass front . Will use my salvaged bolts to secure the new hood .

Jim_HiTek · 04-01-2022, 09:25 AM

Oh, I suppose it would have helped to post a picture of the SS screws...I've always meant to paint the heads of the screws but they are so small you can't really see them well so I've not bothered. They don't affect the look of the RV front end cap...there are 7 SS screw heads in this picture.

JLUSoCal · 04-01-2022, 04:58 PM

I'll third or fourth that screw method. I was fortunate that when mine broke loose I didn't lose it. Barely noticeable as other's have said and not sure if I tried to paint it probably wouldn't match so I left it alone. The other side was still glued on but did that one too.

@Edbehl - did you also put screws in the "grill"?

Edbehl · 04-01-2022, 05:29 PM

I did
The grill mounts came loose from the fiberglass the came way.
So I drilled and put the same wide head bolts with nuts through each bracket, even the ones that were still holding

wyocamper · 04-01-2022, 10:08 PM

I ordered the parts today, no luck finding them on the highway. David at Lichtenstein RV parts assumed correctly that it was the passenger side, since that side seems to fall off all the time. At least three grill mounts, the ones along the top, have also come loose and will need to be drilled and screwed. I'll figure out what size/shape screw I guess. My brain says pan head with fender washer type, but Jim's countersunk flat head seems to work fine as well. I worry about the fiberglass splitting or failing with that method, but his success would seem to prove my fears to be mistaken.

Jim_HiTek · 04-01-2022, 10:13 PM

So far, I don't have any fiberglass cracks around the countersunk screws. But I did use plastic insert lock nuts (and flat washers) and just snugged them down. Made sure to avoid over tightening and so far after thousands of travel miles and several years, no cracks.

Thing I noticed while working on the various fiberglass pieces was how light they are. They aren't structural, they're just appearance or cover type pieces so not heavy enough to cause much stress on the screws.

wyocamper · 04-03-2022, 03:25 PM

It took some running around to find the parts, but I ended up at the local Ace which had everything I needed. I went with 1" SS 8-32 pan head screws with a SS #8 washer on the outside, and a 1" fender washer with another #8 washer and a nylon lock nut on the inside. I put two in the driver side bracket, and one each in the three top grill brackets. All of those had broken loose as well. Once the passenger side bracket comes in I'll put two screws in it and be done. Removing the "hood" panel was pretty simple and made getting to the grill brackets a whole lot easier.

The small screw heads are barely noticeable and don't look out of place at all now, but I ordered some touch up paint from paintscratch.com anyway.

Jim_HiTek · 04-03-2022, 04:45 PM

What I worried about with the panhead was the exposure to elements. I've seen too much rust from SS parts (like on my bike) over the years in my travels (to areas where it rains a lot or the coast with it's salty air) so washers and exposed panhead screws seemed to me to be too likely to rust and send red streaks down the front of the RV so went with the counter sink, thinking that the smaller exposure might slow the possibility of rust. And that I'd eventually get some paint on them...which I've not done yet. So far things have worked out great. No rust.

At the time I was working on this issue, I couldn't find any local SS 8-32 flathead so went with the 6-32, plus I had those in my parts bins. And since they've done such a good job, haven't bothered to change over to 8-32's.

Anyway wyocamper, what you've done will be a good test. Come back and let us know if they start rusting. So far, mine haven't.

wyocamper · 04-09-2022, 09:31 AM

Finally got the new bracket, latch plate and standoffs in this week and got it all put back on, after another trip to Ace to get bolts for the latch plate and jam nuts for the standoffs. You can see the screws for the brackets and the three across the top of the grill. I have some touch-up paint coming that I'll dab on the screw heads and hopefully prevent or at least delay rust. If I do start to see signs of rusting it will be pretty simple to replace the screws and washers before it gets too far along.

Jim_HiTek · 04-09-2022, 09:39 AM

Very nice work wyocamper, looks like a factory job...like they belong there. I also think it's a good idea to use touch up paint on them.

Wyatt · 04-09-2022, 12:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim_HiTek

Very nice work wyocamper, looks like a factory job...like they belong there. I also think it's a good idea to use touch up paint on them.

Apparently they do belong there! This seems to be a fairly common issue. I think some proactive steps are in order on my end…Thanks!

Jim_HiTek · 04-09-2022, 01:15 PM

The only trouble I foresaw with using bolts was the inevitable *crash* or accident and the damage big bolts or screws would do to the areas around the bolts wouldn't be helpful.

I had the good luck (?) observing a friend's RV have the rear end get pulled right off the back of her '03 Journey when she got too close to a roadside hazard while crossing the border from Mexico into the US. It came off in one large piece with the bolted on parts ruining areas of fiberglass as the piece was ripped off, but the epoxied brackets just pop off and do NO damage to the fiberglass. Lucky for her there were plenty of helpful Mexicans nearby to quickly stopped her and helped load her 2 foot wide by 9 foot long fiberglass body piece and the ripped off pieces from that into her RV. The four 1/2" bolts that hold it on either side ripped the fiberglass enough that it had to be repaired by the shop she went to at home. The epoxied parts got re-epoxied as per factory instructions.

So that taught me that if I want to avoid extensive/expensive damage to the fiberglass in the event of an accident, to achieve that, I should just use small hardware. And I figured the countersinking and flathead screws would do the job of holding the piece in place UNTIL a wreck, and then just pull out leaving minimal damage. Sort of why I haven't bothered to change to 8-32 hardware yet. Especially since the 6-32 hardware is still holding things nice and firm after years and thousands of travel miles.

About the only issue I've found with the method is that I needed a right angle drill to reach the backs of some of the brackets to drill a mounting hole from the back through the front so I'd not need to do any complex measuring.

wyocamper · 05-14-2022, 04:34 PM

This afternoon I was working outside and was just closing the garage door that my Vista is parked near. I happened to look down and right there on the ground under the front cap was my missing hood bracket. When I was installing the SnapPads this morning the shake from the auto-retract must have been enough to knock it loose from wherever it was stuck. I looked for that thing pretty good and didn't see it, but I never layed down and slid under the front. If I had I might have seen it and saved myself a hundred bucks.

I put the old one back on since it had better standoffs than the new one I got from Lichtsinn. But now I have a brand new one if anyone else lost theirs.

edju · 05-16-2022, 08:09 PM

I've got a 2018 Sunstar 29VE. Both hood brackets and some grill brackets have come loose. I talked to a person with a similar unit in AZ and they had their's fixed at a shop and Winnebago paid for it. She said Winnebago was aware that they used the wrong glue and will fix it.
I did the repair myself. Chiseled off the old glue down to the fiberglass and sanded the brackets down to bare metal. Then used JB Weld two part epoxy and some clamps to put it all. back together. It's been over a year and still seems solid. I check them all the time now. I agree with the comment that it's all about the prep, like many things.

Just curious, what did you end up doing?