Aluminum Camper Forum

Thanks Merlin.
I spent the last hour looking at some videos of amateur camper restorations that did a rebuild, but with a solid plywood door instead of a wood frame, foam core and metal skin. As long as we did not have to go anywhere for a week, it is possible, but the weight of the plywood would be considerably more than what we have on. Hmmm
I will look at the Challenger Door website after posting this. Thanks for the reference!

We own a 2013 Livinlite 10'. It as been a very good camper for my wife and I, and we try to be as proactive as possible for fixing issues and maintaining it. One of the reasons we purchased it was because of the claim that there was no wood to rot in its construction. While in the body of the camper that is true, the back door, one of the most exposed mechanical parts of any rear door camper, is beginning to show its age. While it is not structurally bad, we hope, it does show some staining on the inside bottom similar to the look that other doors on other campers we have owned when the wood frame was breaking down. The other issue is that we have had several oxidation holes appear under the finish paint on the aluminum door. I have some vinyl decals over some silicon for the time being.

So, I am doing some research and reaching out on the forum for a replacement door which would be more durable than replacing the existing door with another similar door. There must be, I hope, a better one out there than the multiple decades old design and construction of most doors on factory built campers. I am also considering taking the door off, not the frame, and re-clading the outside skin, and replacing the inner wood frame with new wood with a soak of CPES, clear penetrating epoxy sealer, as they do in some exposed repairs in boats, and putting it back together.

Has anyone found a manufacturer of a better built door, or done a refit of their existing door? Its too cold in Vermont to do it right now, but it won't be cold forever!

Ok, now I have at least one fix for the ceiling light fuse blowout problem. There is a yellow wire for the switch on the right side which controls the on/off for all lights. I removed the covers in the wet bath along the ceiling. These are held on by the torx self drilling screws. These covers are above the back door, and 2 in the bathroom. The wiring was held in place against the wall in back of the covers by electrical tape, and a pretty crappy job of it. One of the two yellow wires was wedged in two places. One place was where it wore thru on the left side where it pulled a right angle to the back of the camper, and the other was on the right side of the wire, where it was tightly wedged thru the wall toward the kitchen. The wire was pulled pretty taut in the back, and thru to the kitchen, all of them were tightly wedged against the aluminum wall. I wrapped around the wires with some gorilla tape and taped them higher against the side wall so they would not fall into the wedge to be cut again.

I will put some more official cushioning, with some more electrical tape. Taking the panels off is easy. This could have been prevented by making the wires not as tight, and by putting some cushion in the edges of the bathroom, where the wiring passes.

I also have a livinlite 10', 2013, with exactly the same problem. Yesterday morning, we were using the interior lights as we were getting ready to go. When we got to the campsite, the fuse, #6, had blown. It was for the interior lights only. Replaced the fuse, turned on the switch by the door, and heard the fuse pop. Made sure all the lights were off, put another fuse in, hit the door switch and it popped again. Went thru 4 20 amp fuses. My next step is to pull the lights and check the connections to see if there is a short somewhere. I will do that when we get home from this weekend. Everything else is ok. I had the same problem with the under the sink location for the 7 pin fuse. I probably found the same post that told me where to look. I sent an email to livin lite asking them to include the 7 pin fuse location in their manuals. Heard nothing back. I hate to go to a dealer with $110 an hour, but if I can't find the problem.......If I find that aluminum shavings left behind in the building process made this happen, I will not be happy.

Overall, we have been happy with the livinlite camper for the last 2 years. But we have also found that they, and probably everyone else, use the most inexpensive materials for the water system shutoff valves, and have had to supplement the 2013 interior storage problem with a lot of "home remedies". I submitted an article to truck camper adventures about what we have done for the inside and outside that should be in sometime. You can see what we have done to mod our 10' up.

Have you found the problem on your camper?