Outdoor Kitchen door struts

"flguppie" has the right idea. Just enlarge the surface area where the struts attach, using stainless, aluminum or thin steel. This way you dissipate the stress.

We had this problem on our old RV. I used some diamond plate that was larger than the strut base, and screwed the strut to the diamond plate and then glued & screwed the diamond plate to the door. This allowed the screws into the door to be into solid wood since the diamond plate was larger.

I have not seen any evidence of water (minus the spongy corner), but the repair shop said it was out of square. They adjusted it and sealed the edges. The core is spongy in one of the corners so i assume it has gotten wet at some point. I was considering mounting a plate to where the strut attaches to the door. Hopefully it will add surface area at the attachment location. Does this sound like it may work assuming the leak was fixed with the repositioning and sealing of the door?

The strut plates which bolt onto the bay doors on our rig have 7 holes in them. From the factory, our rig had between 2-5 screws in each plate holding them to the inside of the doors. Our doors are fiberglas outside, sheet metal inside with foam sandwiched in between. Well, not long into our first year of ownership, the majority of the plates were loose, and could not be tightened.

My fix: For each door, I drilled out each of the 7 holes for each plate. Then filled each hole with JB Weld epoxy and gave it a night to set. The next day I drilled a pilot hole into each JB Weld area sized for the sheet metal screws I used to hold the plates. That was almost 10 years ago. I haven't had one loosen up yet.

If your door really is made of wood and is wet, then you need to resolve that issue first. The JB Weld process I used will work even if it gets wet, but if you have water getting into that door, you want to stop it to prevent future damage.

Good Luck,

~Rick

Have you figured out why the wood rotted, and taken measures to keep it from happening again ?

If the frame is still good and the outer skin is good you can rebuild it if you are handy and get creative. Just be careful while disassemble and take pictures and you can replace the wood that is rotted and add support around the places the hinges and hardware attach. No need to buy graphics this way.

I donn't necessarily want cheapest just cheaper than 700 bUcks

Fill the hole with PL Premium Construction adhesive. Let it dry and re-screw.

PL will dry rock hard...

Not the way I would do it, but it's the cheapest..