[Fulltiming]

I had Newell take my door apart about two years ago. The skin had move away from the hinge side toward the lock side. They removed the door from the coach, laid it on a work bench and slowly removed the outside skin. Like you, they had to shave down the insulation foam to get the skin to lay flat. I believe they used tape to reattach the skin and then put rivets along the edge to keep it from shifting again. It was a big job but I can now get the door open during the summer without having to put water on it when the door is facing the sun even though I had shaved the metal on the lock side edge numerous times to relieve the binding. I had not noticed that the skin had physically moved away from the hinge.

[77newell]

I too had not noticed it even though I'm convinced that it has been that way since before I owned it. That conviction is based on the staining on the surface of the foam. It's not an obvious issue until it gets really bad. I'm glad you, Michael, got yours straightened out and I can only hope mine turns out as well.

[77newell]

Both the interior and exterior skins on the door have migrated towards the latch side, especially at the top. Based on Michael's experience noted above I'm wondering if the door sticking problem might not be a possible expected symptom of the skin moving. If the skin moves in that direction the door will tend to stick, you file it off so it works but the sticking comes back as the skin continues to move. Since my door skin has moved much more at the top, this could also explain why the door is bent somewhat outwards at the top on the latch side; it got stuck and someone forced it and it bent.

If as appears likely the case with my coach, too much foam broke the double sided tape bond, the door skins moved toward the latch, binding of those skins with the door frame resulted, forcing the door against that bind bent the door, and continuing this pattern expanded the breaking of the bonding by the tape. One way of testing this logic on your coaches is to do a careful inspection of the gap between the door hinge and the front edge of the outer door skin. In my case at the bottom the skin is tight to the hinge and at the top there is a gap. Once I paid attention to it it was really obvious, I just never paid close attention. If this applies to other coaches as Michael's posting suggests, the binding is not caused by heat alone, it's caused by skin movement together with heat. The heat makes clear that the skin has moved, especially if this is a problem that emerged as the coach aged.