My wife and like to hike, bike ride and swim and wanted a way to get in our Motorhome without have to carry a key.
I Looked in to upgrading the TriMark lock with one like found on million dollar coaches, The parts list quickly ran over $1500 and I still did have everything I needed and installation look like a total disassembly job include pulling the door frame out.
I bought a touch pad RVLock but it would not work as the existing Trimark has 2 latches on at the lock and on up higher on the door, so I put the RVLock in my car hauling trailer and went back to drawing board. One thing I did not like about the RVLock I installed on the Trailer is if I forgot it was locked and tried to open it, the door would pop out and the deadbolt would bind and the electric mechanism couldnโt open the door till I pushed hard and relatched the door something my DW Couldnโt do.
So I went to Lowes and looked at house door touchpads out of all of the locks they had only one still worked after being on display for months. And it had a manual draw and extension of the dead bolt so it look like it was the one for me. It was over $100 at Lowes but I found it one sale on Amazon for $79. I order on now how to make it work with the RV door.
First I thought about removing the screen door as we didnโt use it very often but I hated to do this but it would give me plenty of places to mount the deadbolt. I looked in the cutting door somewhere in the screen door but I didnโt really care for this as the current latch in in the correct place, any higher it would be a pain from the outside and lower it would be a pain from the inside.
I knew where I want to put it but the screen door latch was right in the way. I looked a relocating the screen door latch but didnโt see any good alternatives.
Then I noticed if I just moved to back from the edge farther it would work. So all I needed to do was extend the deadbolt 6 or so inches. I decide to do this with a 5/16โ grade 8 bolt it would be stronger that the pot metal 1โ bolt it was using stock. I had a 6โ bolt but not a 6.5 inch bolt so I put it in the lathe and turned off the head, (if I had a 6.5โ I could have just sawed it off.). I drilled and taped the 1โ deadbolt of the lock and tapped it to accept the bolt. Then it was just a matter of making some steel guard plates and drilling and mounting the lock on the door.
It came out well and works great, easy to use from the inside and the outside. So for $80 a few scraps of steel and a bolt I got the touch pad door lock I wanted.
Pictures below in replay.
Jay Wolf
Vincennes IN
2000 National Tradewinds 7373
