Any help? hybrid front door leak

Ralph Cramden wrote:


What model and year hybrid do you have. Just about all hybrids except Forest River (Rockwood Roo/Flagstaff Shamrock, and Palomino Solaire) have some reiteration of the Lippert bunk door assembly which has evolved in design often, including Forest River's Coachmen and Surveyor hybrids. Certain designs of that door had leak issues at or around the hinge area.

One was due to the hinge design itself that would allow water under the right conditions to penetrate through the hinge pin. That would allow water to usually be found in the storage compartment or area below the door.

The other was lack of factory sealant on the hinge extrusion along the channel at the door bottom on the exterior. This would allow water to get inside of the door itself and wick up into the luan plywood substrate, which is where the bottom rot comes from. That's an easy one to find. Remove whatever they used to cover the hinge area itself on the inside when door is down, usually a piece of EPDM or vinyl. There will be 3 or 5 screws that hold the bottom channel into the door itself. If those screw heads are rusty you have water getting inside the door when its closed, and draining out of those screws.

No matter what version of the Lippert door, the bottom hinge is designed to be self draining. If water gets past the door seal and makes it to the bottom, it's supposed to then drain out the ends of the bottom assembly, hopefully on the exterior. A lot of RV manufacturers did not do a good sealing job at the ends of the assembly. When the design does it's job and the water runs out the hinge assembly, it then finds it's way inside.

The last major redesign I am aware of by Lippert was @ 2012/2013, and the doors since seem to be a lot better where leaks are concerned.

If the door leaks at the perimeter seal itself when closed, that can only be a few things. One is placement of the seal (located too far from edge of door) or areas where the seal is loose where its held on by 3M tape (water gets behind seal). The other is the door is warped in the center and the seal makes no contact. The third is not enough pressure applied by whatever latch system the RV manufacturer used. ( those are not provided by Lippert as part of the assembly, but added by the RV manufacturer).

Although pricey, Lippert sells the seal material. You will not find it on their website and have to call them, and hope a moron does not answer the phone which is a tall order from what I have experienced dealing with Lippert. It's close to $3 a running foot. Ask for D seal with double flange for a securelock bunk door. It may take a few tries as most times the Lippert rep will not even know they make those doors.

Thanks for posting that Ralph, you're right the design is flawed in the older models, especially the bottom portion around the hinge. Under certain conditions, water just gets right into the front storage compartment, which in turns leads to rot everywhere. I have a 2003 Travelstar 21sso, and had to replace the front half of the floor, as well as rebuild the front piece (under the front bed) wall and bottom half of the front bunk door. What a pain in the arse! That said, our first trip out, we drove through some light rain, and when we got to our destination, there was quite a bit of water in the front storage area! Ugh!

It seems this only happens when driving in the rain, so the wind pressure pushes the water in through the bottom hinge. There are no leaks at all when stationary, even in the heaviest rain storms. What I do now is jam a wide piece of rubber inside the hinge channel, so far it's been a success, a couple of drops do get in occasionally, but no where near as bad as it used to be.

Cheers
Slav