Removing habitation door skin

[JerryJ]

In a fit of overzealous enthusiasm my wife pulled the curved interior handle right off the inside of the habitation door on our Autotrail Tracker EKS 2006. It was secured to the plastic by two small bolts and the heads simply came through the plastic. Given the customary curvature of the door, it takes a mighty heave to shut it properly. I want to reattach it but at the same time beef up the handle by fitting a plate of some sort on the other side of the door so as to act as a huge washer and spread the load. I can only do this by being able to get at the inside of the door and therein lies my problem. I naively thought that removing the two dozen or so tiny screws that are hidden beneath the door seal all around the door, would allow me to remove the plastic trim. Having taken them all off it made no difference whatsoever and though I can get a finger or screw driver blade all around the trim, it is clearly held on by something quite strong. Has anyone ever removed the interior door trim and if so, could you please tell me how you did it? I'd be massively grateful.

 

[whiskyman]

Hi JerryJ and

You will need to remove the screws that hold the surround on the internal handle pull. Also the panel is held on with double sided tape all around the window which is a bit of a pain to get at but with a little bit of leverage and maybe a sharp knife you can seperate it from the frame. Where It lifts off over the lock down button can be a bit awkward as well, If you have hab central locking watch out for the wires at the bottom of th door when removing the panel.

Good luck

 

[JerryJ]

Many thanks for this. There is a single very long bolt that hold the internal handle pull and I did take that out but had no affect but thank you for the advice about the tape on the windows. I'll give it a go when I had a grandchild free day....

 

[WillH]

The internal handle , now you have removed the long screw, requires to be pushed through the hole it sits in. Bit fiddly but I've done this several times now. Once you have the door apart tighten up all the screws holding the cassette assembly in place, I have found tem slack before.

 

[JerryJ]

Many thanks Will. Adding all this to the list of things I have to do.

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[Gaston aires]

If when fixed it still takes a mighty heave to shut it, leave an internal skylight or widow open, the air pressure can stop it closing properly.
Phil

 

[denisejoe]

Could you not use double sided tape to get a large washer through the hole and stick to the inside of the door

 

[JerryJ]

Unfortunately, both screws were welded into the retaining collars on the interior of the handle and I had to cut them out to get the screws out. The handle itself simply doesn't cover enough area to make it resistant to a good pull. I need to extend them further into the door. Probably end up with a bigger hole....

 

[JerryJ]

Right, for the benefit of anyone who ever tries this again let me go through what I had to do to get the inner skin off and more importantly, how to get it back on again.
1) Remove all the tiny screws that are hidden inside the door seal and also remove any burglar alarm sensors that might be fitted to the door trim.
2) Pull the inner door handle fully open so you can remove the screw that sits behind it. It is a silver bolt and quite obvious.
3) Remove the black screw that lies at an angle inside the gap left when the door handle is pulled out. If you don't look closely you will never see it. It is screwed into a recess at a downwards angle.
4) I used a plastic dashboard removal tool to separate the window from the seal. It wasn't difficult once started but choose your tool carefully or you could end up damaging the inner trim.
5) Having done that you should then, with some pushing and pulling get the inner door cover off. The difficulty lies in getting the holes off the locks which protrude quite a way. If you have one, you might also have to disconnect what I am assume are two central locking wires that pass from the van into the door.This involves removing the grommet that I couldn't get back in but which took my wife about 20 seconds to replace...
6) Do what you have to do (in my case reinforce the door handles connection to the plastic door trim.)
Replacement.
a) Reconnect the central locking wires having also replaced the grommet through which they pass in the door trim.
b) Put new double sided tape or similar back down the sides of the window frame. We used double sided tape but didn't remove the outer cover on the tape until everything else was done. This meant it didn't stick to everything as we fought to put the door back.
c) The pop up lock was an absolute pain to line up and get in place as were the protruding locks at the side. Prolific swearing helps enormously I found though it really is a two person job. Wife was superb at keeping me calm and getting things lined up.
d) The bit I had been dreading most was replacing the interior door handle which is held on by a bolt and a screw. After lots of faffing about I found that if I left the long silver bolt out I could then peer in enough to see where the black screw was meant to be going. I would point out that I had superglued the self tapping housing to the lock frame so I couldn't dislodge it. I'd seriously recommend you doing the same. Eventually I got it lined up (it goes in at a 45° downwards angle) and having screwed it most of the way in, replaced the silver bolt and then did both up.
e) We then removed the backing layer off the sticky tape so we could push the windows back onto it to seal it. We had not removed the original sealing stuff as the sticky tape alone seemed rather thin so the sticky tape was just put on top of the original seal.
f) It then only remained for me to go round and lift the seal all around the door and then replace the score or so of tiny screws. I also had to replace the burglar alarm sensor thingy. Job done!

I hope this helps anyone else who has to tackle this.

 

[Joan-Arapaho]

Hello
Thank you all for your input! Especially the last notes from Jerry, I found these really helpful. I have an Auto Trail Arapaho 2005 and the habitation door locking mechanism is faulty. Neither the central locking or the key locks. The bars move up/down freely when manually checking. I think there may be a broken or missing part in the mechanism? I have attached a picture if anyone could advise please? Does anyone have an original technical drawing/specification of this? So I could see the difference?
I have purchased a security lock to secure the door but there is a gap so I am in a desperate way to sort this as I am moving into this as my home next week!
I can't work out how to send an attachment??(
Many thanks
Joan

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[Joan-Arapaho]

Hello... Me again..
I have now attached the pic....
Waiting in hope
Joan

 

[PP Bear]

Hello... Me again..
I have now attached the pic....
Waiting in hope
Joan

Hi Joan, did you manage to get a result on your problem. Mines just stopped working on the key fob again, but works with the key thank goodness.

I’ve already had the door skin off twice before, so hopefully it’ll be straight forward, but interested to hear how you got on.

Oh and hanks for posting that picture, it’ll be helpful to me for sure, as I had forgotten exactly what it looked like

 

[Gizzmo77]

Right, for the benefit of anyone who ever tries this again let me go through what I had to do to get the inner skin off and more importantly, how to get it back on again.
1) Remove all the tiny screws that are hidden inside the door seal and also remove any burglar alarm sensors that might be fitted to the door trim.
2) Pull the inner door handle fully open so you can remove the screw that sits behind it. It is a silver bolt and quite obvious.
3) Remove the black screw that lies at an angle inside the gap left when the door handle is pulled out. If you don't look closely you will never see it. It is screwed into a recess at a downwards angle.
4) I used a plastic dashboard removal tool to separate the window from the seal. It wasn't difficult once started but choose your tool carefully or you could end up damaging the inner trim.
5) Having done that you should then, with some pushing and pulling get the inner door cover off. The difficulty lies in getting the holes off the locks which protrude quite a way. If you have one, you might also have to disconnect what I am assume are two central locking wires that pass from the van into the door.This involves removing the grommet that I couldn't get back in but which took my wife about 20 seconds to replace...
6) Do what you have to do (in my case reinforce the door handles connection to the plastic door trim.)
Replacement.
a) Reconnect the central locking wires having also replaced the grommet through which they pass in the door trim.
b) Put new double sided tape or similar back down the sides of the window frame. We used double sided tape but didn't remove the outer cover on the tape until everything else was done. This meant it didn't stick to everything as we fought to put the door back.
c) The pop up lock was an absolute pain to line up and get in place as were the protruding locks at the side. Prolific swearing helps enormously I found though it really is a two person job. Wife was superb at keeping me calm and getting things lined up.
d) The bit I had been dreading most was replacing the interior door handle which is held on by a bolt and a screw. After lots of faffing about I found that if I left the long silver bolt out I could then peer in enough to see where the black screw was meant to be going. I would point out that I had superglued the self tapping housing to the lock frame so I couldn't dislodge it. I'd seriously recommend you doing the same. Eventually I got it lined up (it goes in at a 45° downwards angle) and having screwed it most of the way in, replaced the silver bolt and then did both up.
e) We then removed the backing layer off the sticky tape so we could push the windows back onto it to seal it. We had not removed the original sealing stuff as the sticky tape alone seemed rather thin so the sticky tape was just put on top of the original seal.
f) It then only remained for me to go round and lift the seal all around the door and then replace the score or so of tiny screws. I also had to replace the burglar alarm sensor thingy. Job done!

I hope this helps anyone else who has to tackle this.

Brilliant. My Cheyenne Door locks have failed top and bottom so I'll need to get inside to find out why and to fix it. This is a great help thank you.