One more small item I wanted to complete over the weekend on our motorcoach before the start of the new RVing season. I decided to finally replace that poorly designed door mechanism that Monaco uses. I don't know why they didn't get with the times like most every other manufacturer but they insisted on sticking with a poor out of date scissor type mechanism to hold the door open as well as act as a stop.
There have been a lot of write-ups over the years and I finally decided last fall that I had tightened up the scissor assembly for the last time and ordered the parts to convert it to the gas strut style.
Here is the only part where I really had to deviate from some of the other write-ups, my Dynasty had the small molded drip rail over the entrance door so it needed a small amount of trimming to clear the swing of the gas strut.
I then started measuring where I wanted to the bracket to mount on the coach. I ended up 4" back from the front of the door molding to the center of the first hole in the bracket. I also drilled a third hole in both brackets to give a little extra support.
I then opened the door to 90-degrees and marked where the bracket needed to be on the door itself. Then drilled and installed it.
This is what it looks like with the door closed.
Next I wanted to machine a couple of covers to cover the openings of the two OEM mounting brackets.
I used a pieced of .125" aluminum, measured, machined, drilled and countersunk the screw holes for the coach mounted piece.
I then used a piece of .188" thick aluminum that I flycut to flatten out, measured the bolt holes, drilled and countersunk for the rivets using a .375" end mill.
I made the part slightly oversize to completely cover the square recessed hole in the door itself. The part measures 1.5" x 3.0" overall dimensions.
I then flipped it over in the mill vise and machined the border to the exact size of the OEM bracket. This will allow the cover to orientate itself down into the recess of the door.
Cover installed on the coach inside the doorjamb.
Cover installed up on top of the door into the recess of the OEM bracket. Sadly this cover will never be seen up on top of the door. But I will know it is there and what it looks like.
All in all the complete job was quite easy and I highly recommend it to anyone who owns a Monaco coach with the scissor style door support mechanism.
Also not shown in the above pictures is after I completed the installation I touched up the heads of the six screws with some black paint to blend into the mounting brackets. It actually looks like something that should have come out of the factory this way.
Mike.
