Darned cabinet hinges!

MountainAir05 wrote:
Looking at the picture , then you should look at the Blum 170 degree ones and see if they will work.

It is not clear these function the same. The cabinet doors we are talking about are the overhead cabinets where the doors open from the bottom and must be held up when open.

While Blum has "self closing" hinges, which would indeed keep the doors closed, not clear they will hold it in the up position.

This looks neat and has the needed "stay up" feature. I can't use them because my doors are not that close to the side wall of the cabinet...

http://www.hardwaresource.com/hinges/CABINET+HINGES/Vertical+Door+Stays/Blum+Aventos+Door+Lift/Blum+Aventos+Stay+Lift+System

Yikes! That thing is expensive. But it looks like this a different brand to what I have but does the same thing.

http://www.hardwaresource.com/hinges/CABINET+HINGES/Vertical+Door+Stays/Lift-up+Hinge

We have these hinges in our 04 HR Imperial and are very happy with them. They've never needed adjusting to keep them open. The only thing that has happened with them is the screws that fasten the hinge to the cabinet have loosened. We're half timers so they have been "used" for about 5 yrs.
Ron

tkcas01 wrote:
Ah, here is the exact hinge design as in my Diplomat. They basically start falling apart over time and lose their "springiness". I recommend NOT buying these!

Dave........Yes, the hinges Monaco used are problematic, but can be made to last longer. There is a pin in the hinge that gets a lot of where and fails. I started lubing mine when I started having failures. I also carry several spares just in case.

The hinge tension is adjustable. If you adjust them so the door lifts way up, it will make them fail prematurely. If you adjust them so the door barely opens, its aggravating. Try to find a happy medium if you can.

I've owned my coach for 8+ years and have probably replaced five of these hinges in the first 2-3 years and none since I've started lubing them and releasing the tension a little.

Northwest RV Supply, a Monaco parts outlet use to have them at a good price.

pusherpilot wrote:
We're half timers so they have been "used" for about 5 yrs.
Ron

This is a good point. 8 years of full-timing and mine get alot of use and have failed, gotten wimpy, etc - especially on the most used cabinets, such as where the dishes are, staples, etc.. So maybe these are fine for "recreational" use over time, but not so much for heavy, continuous, repeated use.

Ah, now that's the kind of discussion I was hoping to stimulate! But, not too many solutions.

We were browsing new coaches yesterday and I saw that the doors in one of the coaches had 3 hinges along the top, just to hold it on, but struts along the side to hold it open or closed. Think I might try that.

I replaced those (above) with regular hinges and added spring struts to hold the doors open. Anyone wants my old (pic above)hinges can have 'em for the postage. PM me