Door Catch Repair August 13, 2019, 02:26:29 pm Hi everyone,We had something happen we knew could happen and tried to avoid, but it happened anyway. The wind blew our entry door open so fast and hard that the impact broke the catch on the door. It also slightly bent the other part that's on the coach (that was easy to straighten with pliers).But, the part on the door (the receiver/concave part) actually split. It was still attached to the door but wouldn't hold anymore because of the split down the middle of the concave part.In case this happens to anyone, I thought I'd explain what I did to fix it. I went about one task totally wrong and want to tell you how to do it right.First, I bought the Lazy Daze replacement from the mothership. It was about $9. It's designed for you to unscrew the whole assembly from your door and bolt the new one on. I didn't like that idea because the one on the door is painted to match and the paint covers the seams between the door and catch. So, I decided to "mate" the catch part of the new after removing the broken catch part of the old. The photos show what I'm talking about if what I wrote doesn't make sense.The tricky part and what I want to explain is that the catch is made of spring steel. My plan seemed simple: cut the broken piece out, cut the new catch apart to make a replacement piece, drill both and rivet the two pieces together.It was easy to do the cutting with a Dremel tool with one of their little Dremel cutoff wheels. But, I went through five or six 1/8" drill bits trying to drill into the spring steel. They just wouldn't cut and they'd heat up and break. I tried different types of bits and still no luck. After an hour of this and about to give up, I finally googled "drilling spring steel" and found a post on a machinist forum. I learned that to drill holes in spring steel you can use a carbide tip bit or a high-speed steel bit.But, here's the key thing that I was doing wrong. Even though you use a high speed steel bit, in order to cut through the spring steel, you have to run the bit super, super slow - like 1 revolution per second. Once I did that, the drill bit ever so slowly started to cut and eventually made nice holes through, perfect for the rivets. I tried it with a carbide bit, too, and it was the same thing: slow, slow speed did the trick.The photos show how it came out. Hope the slow drilling tips helps someone avoid the frustration I had breaking bits and trying to drill holes for over an hour. Pretty funny.Hope you're reading this camping in a beautiful spot somewhere,Jim & DebSanta Cruz, California 3 Likes
Re: Door Catch Repair Reply #2 – August 14, 2019, 09:08:01 am Got to love the 'google'. Who would of thought when we were growing up information would be so cheap.glen 3 Likes
Topic: Door Catch Repair (Read 172 times)
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Topic: Door Catch Repair (Read 172 times)
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