Hydraulic Door/Hatch Lifts Help Please?

[lordnorth]

Recently bought a "new to me" 2011 Coachmen Mirada.

None of the doors located under the slides have any kind of mechanism to hold them up. I realize they do this to keep you from opening or closing your slide with the door up... but I am going to pretend that I am smart enough not to do this.

I am looking to install hydraulic lifters to hold the doors open.

One side has the nice big 20" tall doors, which seem to be pretty easy to fit.

The other side has the little 12 1/2" tall doors.

I am looking at Hatchlifter brand, and they say I need an "Extra-Small" application, but they don't have an "Extra-Small" available on their site.

Can anyone else recommend another lift that I could use, or could you tell me if the "Small" can be used on a 12 1/2" door?

Thanks!

[JimM68]

If you have a fleet and farm store anywhere, they have a huge selection.

Also they are widely available on the internet, just search.

Grainger.com is a good source for just about anything too.

[lordnorth]

Effy, I think I really like your suction cup idea! Will probably get the lifters for the large doors, but I think the suction cup would work out just fine for the little tiny doors!

I get what you are saying about the hydraulic vs pneumatic... but they do call them hydraulic lifters: "Hatchlifts are retro-fit hydraulic door lift spring system that provide assistance with opening and closing lightweight RV baggage compartment doors" (http://www.hatchlift.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=59)

I like the true "hydraulic" idea. Hit the pad, set the levelers, then pop all the doors. I could sync them to a heavy beat, maybe even get my levelers to bounce. Yo... bada$$ dude... :R

[Effy]

Just occurred to me you may want to search for pneumatic not hydraulic. I don't think you want to install a hydraulic lift and lines for a bin door. Could be done I suppose but a little overkill.

[Greyghost]

The last two that I purchased were from Camping World. If they don't work you can take them back.

[Effy]

Depending on the type of doors you have you may need to fabricate a bracket of some sort for the end of the lift to attach to. Those hollow core doors don't have much to screw into and you could find that you end up tearing up the door simply by installing the lift. An angle bracket of some sort glued and screwed might give you enough footprint to mount the end. I thought about doing the same thing on mine and decided the work to sure up the door enough for the lift was too much hassle and I just got a length of string and a suction cup. One end of the string on the bin door latch, one end on a suction cup attached to the side of the slide. This way if for whatever reason I leave it up and the slide does come in, the slack in the string is proportional to the slide movement and it allows it to fall out of the way. It's redneck engineering but I am sure it could be prettied up.

[Berner2]

I have seen pretty good selections at Carquest, NAPA etc. You might try some parts stores.

FWIW, on my Cross Country I moved all of the lift brackets up 2 holes. I unscrewed the brackets and moved the bottom bracket hole to the top screw hole and drilled 2 new holes and remounted the lift bracket. I gave me way better access to my bins, I can actually stand up and get stuff out. I also did the same to the doors under the slide. They rest against the bottom of the slide when it's extended but I have good access when it's retracted.

Like you I am betting I am smart enough to not crush the bin doors. It's been a few years now and so far so good.

[lordnorth]

Johno...as I said... pretend... What you described happening when you opened the slide is pretty much what I expected would happen. I would guess that closing them with the door open would be exponentially uglier.

But I can't find a lifter that will even let me try out the experiment.

Hoping someone else can make a suggestion!

[Johno02]

First, you probably aren't smart enough to not do it, it will happen! Having said that, ours are the same way, but came with lifts installed. However, the ones under the slide had a steel cable with hooks that attach to the lift mounts and keeps the door from opening far enough to hit the slide. I did open the hooks so that they can be removed to let the doors open fully if the slides are in. Works great, but but if the door is up, and the slide gets extended, it still hits the door. At least the slide just pushed the door down a bit, and didn't even leave any scratches.