If the polyolefin hinges are glued onto the panel (like my camper 495 is) they cut them off flush like that, then glue and rivet the embassy hinge on top of it.
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Thanks for pointing that out, I thought all the original hinges were just riveted to the panels.
Hey Guys,
Thought I would chime in.
There is no good way to remove the old plastic hinge that was glued to the panel without damaging the panel itself.
The fix for the glued hinges is to apply the embassy hinge on top of it, using a different adhesive for plastic to metal bonding and rivets.
The fix for riveted hinges is to remove the old plastic hinge completely and apply the new embassy hinge directly to the panel using our standard metal to metal adhesive and rivets.
We have tested both of these upgrade methods and have found them both to be as strong as each other with the rivets acting as a permanent clamp for the adhesive while also providing a second level of protection against hinge failure.
There are a mixture of riveted and glued hinges within V1 and a few V1 campers with the embassy hinge straight from our facility.
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Embassy Hinge Failure.
Yup, popped right off in my hands as I opened the back hatch. Two months after having my V1 hinges replaced after one of those fell off right in my hands too. Not very impressed, one engineering failure on a new product I can understand, takes time to work some bugs out, but when the āsolutionā fails less than two months later thatās pretty disappointing. Emailed Go Fast about it and was told not to āforceā it open and to make sure all ice is cleared from around the hinges first.
It was approximately 20 degrees and I went to load up some skis, when I opened the latches the back hatch didnāt open immediately. I cleared the ice and snow from around the hatch, gave slight tug on both sides of the latches (I am pretty careful with this thing since the last one fell in my lap too), there was no prying or forcing and all it took was a slight tug to get the hatch started and with zero warning the whole thing just popped right off. Honestly, if it canāt be opened in basic winter conditions then whatās the point, this is built in Montana?
Still waiting to hear what the solution to this solution will be.
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My new embassy hinge has been great so far, but Iāll be following this. I hope this is a one off failure.
@seamus I feel for you with two catastrophic failures.
Peace.
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Just an update.
A GFC employee was in my area and came to fix these hinges. I appreciate that they came to me this time, saved 6 hours of driving through snow. The work took a little longer than I think both of us expected but he replaced all the aluminum sitnuts and screws with steel ones and made sure to loctite them. Fingers crossed this is the last catastrophic failure I have to deal with. Bottom lines: we really like this concept and WANT it to work, but weāve been disappointed with actual results. Iām happy with GFC coming and fixing this set of hinges, and moving forward iāll be more cautious about ice build up around the hinges. Fingers crossed.
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