Front Entry Door

[Dick Callahan]

This is the first time I have run into this problem. We got home to Green Valley three weeks ago ( Sept 10 ). While transferring stuff back into the residence I flicked the door closed with an elbow. It has resisted all attempts to open it since. Dorothy was still inside. If someone had a camera the Club would have had a good video of "Older lady egressing Motorcoach to a stepladder".
Ken Carpenter says he has never heard of door jamming before.
"Rob" at Monaco Hotline suggested pushing with feet from inside while someone holds outside handle toward "Open".
Travelnet will contact a Locksmith for me. But the lock works with key or electrically okay.
I have removed the access panel from the inside, through the screen door. There are a lot of rods in there but I can't see where they go exactly.  
Plastic Explosive would be one fix, but is rough on Door and paint.

[Paul Schwalen]

This may not help you with getting the door opened but it may help with it not happening again.  Before our Contessa we had the door on our Diplomat do the same thing.  The only difference was I noticed that the door handle on the outside was requiring a lot of 'snap of the wrist' to get  the door to open.  After a while it got so bad that I decided to look into the issue.

It turns out that inside the door there is a 1/4" threaded rod that runs vertically and allows an adjustment of the two 'U' grabbers that keep the door closed tight.  The adjustment had worked its way from its origingal setting and it was a simple matter to adjust the 1/4" nuts on the rod so that the grabbers worked smoothly and didn't jam.

The hard part was accessing the area inside the door.  As I recall, I was not able to remove the inside door plate but was able to get it peeled back enough to recognize the problem and make the adjustments.

Just  a silly thought, I don't suppose the dead bolt got slid into place?

Hope this helps.

[LEAH DRAPER]

This experience may or may not be related but thought I'd share my experience with door issues.  I have found that when it is hot and the sun is shinning on the door that there is some expansion causing MUCH difficulty in opening the door after unlocking it.  It some times helps to "put your shoulder to the door" to apply pressure inward while attempting to open the door latch as usual/normal.  This has worked for me many times.  Not sure what expands with such heat but it happens.  

[Richard And Babs Ames]

We had one of those "duh" events with a front door once. The door handle lock was engaed and we were used to using the dead-bolt only. We tried to unlock it by turning the key to the lock position instead of the unlock. It worked OK after we got our directions in order.

[Joel Ashley]

Dick-

Be sure to post the outcome when you resolve the latch issue.   In case it ever happens to me, I'd like to know if Paul's advice was the solution, or if it was something else  .

-Joel

[Dick Callahan]

I have hoped that something, anything would encourage the door to work. I had removed the Deadbolt mechanism after remembering a problem the Lauderdale's had with theirs,long ago.The temperatures have gone down some 25-30 degrees since we got home. I tried the "shoulder" both steady pressure and bouncing to no avail. Nothing has worked so far. TNT is sounding better all the time. If anything happens I'll post it. Thanks for the suggestions.

[Roger Bowton]

Our 06 Monterey has a bulb seal that inflates when the coach is running to reduce wind noise and it takes a little bit for it to deflate. It's a little far out but is it not deflating?  My wife has a problem getting the door open right away when we stop.  Just a thought.. Good luck

[Dick Callahan]

The final result of my front door problem is listed here. I took it to a repair facility in Tucson, where they worked on it for 5 hours before getting the lower latch to release. They tightened the mechanisms inside the door. It is working now.

[LEAH DRAPER]

THAT HAS TO BE A VERY EXPENSIVE DOOR NOW, 5 HOURS LABOR, WOW!