Hondo Garage's New Thing

I have a Leer cap with windoors that I’ve used for 2 years, never had a problem. And I use the windoors A LOT. Even lift and lower them by just one side quite often.

 

Maybe the problem is the interface between the hinge and the round pipe frame. The interface with the extrusion is flat, which is good, however the other side of the hinge sits on the pipe. The roundness of the pipe creates a point loading on the flat and flexible hinge. The sealing helps with this point loading to some extent but it's not the optimum interface and its somewhat flexible too. Over time this creates stress in the hinge and its ~1 mm thick folding fulcrum.
I'm not sure how the hinge is secured. The bolts that connect the extrusion to the frame must go through the hinge. Perhaps the hinge needs more of a continuous connection than those 4 ~5/16" bolts. Maybe the hinge is moving around just a little bit and over time creates cumulative stress. Maybe those relatively large holes in the hinge creates some weakness.

 

Next generation of the go fast spotted in Reno?

 

Has anyone mounted a hi-lift in the bed? I wasn’t sure what mounts worked with the gfc.

 

I know we were talking about GFCs, plus swingouts, plus MTBs in here a while ago. Finally got my setup finished.






Now I just need to escape the snow and head to Moab for some camping and biking.

 

2.5 hours later and two hinges replaced solo. Pretty straightforward, most difficult part is the gas struts.

I should not have to spend my time dealing with this crap. The alternative would be waiting a couple weeks for gfc to pickup. After that at least a couple more weeks for warranty work plus who knows how long a delivery timetable leaving me completely without the product I paid for.

I cut the bulb seal on both hinges so it no longer tucked under the edges of the hinges raising them up. I can now see light through so it will probably leak. May add some silicon.

Lining up the hinges is also a little difficult. At first I could not get the latches to catch.

The bolts to hold the tent to the frame were clean on the drivers side, showing corrosion on the passenger side.

I don’t see any reason not to use a metal galley hinge. I need to check the dimensions. If worried about water, silicon should work.

For now, I will only use the two hinges I replaced. They are fresh and no longer have seal under the edges. I will not use the remaining original hinge. Still undecided if I want to ship this back for resealing. Waiting to see how newly sealed campers hold first.

I don’t have confidence in the plastic hinges even if aligned and sealed. The ones I replaced are so brittle and dry. I don’t care what the specs say, they don’t inspire confidence for me.

Name an off-road camper with more broken hinges, I’ll wait

 

Bummer.

 

As you know, I'm one of the few people in this world who can empathize with you.

Imagine everything you did but with all the pieces glued together and having to trim gasket/sealing material.

Now you know better than just about anyone else and can imagine why I was so disappointed.

I'm not getting my sealing fixed because,as you found out for yourself, I can't imagine these hinges actually lasting.

I'm happy to hear you were able to fix it though.

 

Thanks for posting your pics earlier. It showed how simple it is conceptually. Glue would have made it worse. It was pretty easy, just time consuming. The gas struts and hinge seating were a little finicky. I may loosen up the bolts and slide the hinges around a little tomorrow.

I think ~7 have reported hinge failures so far online. There are probably more of us than we realize. We know there were ~80-100 campers produced the old way. More failures will happen. I am not saying all will fail, but almost certainly more.

This isn’t a product that can just be shipped back by UPS for warranty which makes it tough for everyone.

I am most curious if new sealing solved it, but only time will tell.

 

Another one on the gfc forum as I typed up my last post.

 

At this rate GFC is gonna stop commenting on their own forum

 

No, they’ll just create another forum for the super secret squirrel members...

 

Guess who just had another hinge fail?....

This guy!

I'm so over this nonsense.

First hinge failed the last week of September, right before my birthday. So that's about 5 weeks to the second failure on the other side.

At least this time it didn't come close to hurting me... Because it failed while opening instead of while I was trying to close it.

Am I supposed to slowly guide the door open too? Is that on the usage case as well?

At least the wife is really in agreement with me now on moving on from this and saving up for something else.

Don't forget kids, there's no stronger camper on the market... If you open and close the doors just right... And if your camper wasn't sealed by the company at a later date... And if it was assembled a year after they started with the same materials as mine

Luckily I implored them to send all the hinges for my camper when the first hinge broke (initially they only wanted to send the one) so I'll only be out a couple of hours today repairing and won't have to do the duct tape door again.

So much for the new home projects that were planned. At least it broke in the apartment complex again where all my tools are *sigh*

 

I think you got a camper built on Monday using hinges produced on a Monday.

 

I’m the guy with the hinge blowing out. It’s a 13 hour drive to Bozeman.....

 

Actually we agreed last time it was probably a Friday afternoon camper, hahaha

 

@pilosopo
All these hinge related posts should be posted over on the GFC forum too.

 

I posted the first time there. Will add this one too.

 

I think we should start a poll on how my rear hinge will fail.

Passenger side while closing.

Driver's side while opening.

Rear panel...

Spontaneous failure on the freeway from the vacuum behind the camper at speed?

Speed bump induced failure on the way to work?

Looking at it the wrong way as I unload my bowling bag before league on Tuesday?

The possibilities and scenarios are limitless....