Rear Compartment Door Frame Repair, Holiday Rambler.

[ClydesdaleKevin]

I had an "oops" at a gas station a year or so ago, and a cement filled metal pole just reached out and touched the back end of our rear compartment on the passenger side.  The door wasn't damaged, but the door frame sure was!



As was the sheet aluminum behind the frame.

So I rounded up what I needed.  A sheet of aluminum, a deep enough compartment door frame to use as a donor, and another donor piece that had the track for the molding, since the deep enough door frame had no track.



And a whole lot of aluminum rivets!

First I had to cut out the damaged material.  Mostly with my grinder.  And then I loosened up all the surrounding trim pieces, which required a lot of rivet drilling!  Its a Holiday Rambler...you get used to rivets.



And then I had to straighten the steel part of the compartment itself, and add in a piece of angle aluminum, which everything anchors to.  It was destroyed.



The next thing to do was remove the door by drilling out the rivets, then the frame by drilling out the rivets, and then fitting the door into the frame and carefully cutting the donor frame to replace what was needed.  My fine kerf chop saw made getting square cuts and perfect angle cuts easy.




The extrusion wasn't a perfect match, but I made it work, and riveted it all back together, nice and strong.  Then I had to fit the new sheet aluminum, and marked it with a Sharpee from the inside, and then cut it out on my bandsaw...which leaves a way cleaner edge than tin snips.



So before I could do the bending and riveting, I had to rivet the door back in place, and used a bandsawed piece from the secondary donor frame to tie in the molding trim track.




Then I was able to rivet all the surround trim back down, reinstall all the molding, and bend the new sheet aluminum into place and rivet it down.



And then the door got riveted back on, and the hold up support got reinstalled.




And then finally she got painted!




Good as new!  Don't let the tricks of the camera lighting fool you.  It came out perfect!  I was pretty impressed...lol!

I also changed out all the compartment locks while I was at it with brand new Southco locks.  One locking, and one non locking per compartment.



This project...and changing out all the worn out compartment locks...is DONE!!!

Kev

[ClydesdaleKevin]

My beautiful wife Patti was nice enough to do the caulking for me when it was all said and done.  I can do and fix just about anything, but I really REALLY suck at laying a nice bead of caulk!

Kev

[HandyDan]

Great work!  I fully understand the rivets.

[jeno]

Looks great come do mine

[ClydesdaleKevin]

LOL Dan!  At least they are aluminum rivets.  Easy to drill.  I only broke one drill bit!

Kev

[Lefty]

Nice work Kevin. You cannot even tell that anything was repaired.

[ClydesdaleKevin]

Thanks Lefty!  Its a strong repair too.  Solid as the rest of the compartments, which it wasn't before repairing the damage.

Kev