[Robev]

Update on the fridge door dropping situation.



Thanks to the great suggestion by Daryl, I followed up on his suggestion of supporting the bottom hinge, so that it can't be bent any further on rough roads. Initially I thought about making a block that I could remove and only use when we knew we might be going on rough roads, but as we boondock about 95% of the time, we are always coming across roads that are less than perfect. So I decided to make the block a permanent fixture. I score BIG with my wife who likes to place bottles of milk etc, mainly on both front doors. Because we are both right handed, we tended to use the right hand side of the fridge door more, and this was the first one to have a reoccurring bent pivot support problem. Over the last four years, I've had to reset the door four times and got to the point of noting on the fridge lower door, the ideal 're-bent' height setting.


There is a horizontal plastic strip that runs along the bottom face of the door and I had to cut a recess into the wooden block so the block didn't interfere with this decorative and non structural addition. There is a ledge that comes out from the bottom of the fridge floor/slide, that comes out about 2-3" and on the outside of that slide is a black painted wooden decorative and protective piece of timber that is nailed into the front side of the slide floor. This works perfectly to stop the wooden block from moving out from under the hinge when the RV is mobile and falling out on the floor. Additionally, the lower hinge has a strengthening 'crease' in it as it extends out to the lower fridge door pin/pivot and this is designed to strengthen the hinge and I assume prevent it from bending like it does!! In this modification, I used this to provide a 'jockey detent' in the top of the wood, so it would be locked into position and wouldn't move. The block I made out of some old waste 4 x 3 timber. I sanded and filled and fared them before finally painting them gloss black. The timber was about 1/8 to 1/4' lower than the hinge, sitting underneath. So I covered the hinge in green masking tape and then used a fiberglass impregnated with builders bog to build up the area on top of the wood, so it would mold into the shape of the underside of the lower hinge. In other words, I used the hinge covered in masking tape to make a mold of the hinge. As the bog was about 80% dry, of removed the wooden blocks and shaped them so they were starting to look a bit more presentable. As you will see from the finished pictures, unless you knew the fridge wasn't supposed to have the door support like I have made, they just look like part of the construction. To get these wooden blocks into and out of place, I had to use a hammer to knock them into place sideways, from the direction of the oven, as they were a friction fit. There is no way they will come out and I know they will be taking about 95+ of the normal weight of the door and 100% of the weight when we hit a bad bump in the road, and that I will no longer have to adjust the fridge door. Again thanks to Daryl for the suggestion of using a block. It was just what I needed to set my imagination rolling and this solution followed. Hope this helps others as they have helped me. Rob