What’s up with hinges breaking

Kwood · April 20, 2020, 3:02am

That sucks. What is your build #?

ETALATE · April 20, 2020, 3:04am

Ya it hasn’t been the greatest ownership experience… Build 128

GFC706 · April 20, 2020, 3:59am

Just hinges? Or other issues too? I hope that hinge problem is fixed with the adhesive. Not sure if they can retrofit a riveted camper. Good luck.

Peace.

Smelly621 · April 20, 2020, 3:24pm

My rear hinge has identical tears in the middle.

They were able to send me a new side hinge a few weeks ago despite the shutdown, it just took a few weeks.

I got my rivet gun and extra 3/16" drill bit from Amazon last week and may sneak out throughout the day to work on replacing my side hinge.

With the rate things are going, I figure I should just plan a fall trip to MT to get the re-seal done as I can’t see them re-starting the repair tour anytime soon.

At build #128 had they switched to the new sealant between the hinge and extrusion or was yours one of the original design?

GFC_Taylor · April 20, 2020, 11:29pm

Hey Jay, shoot me an email at support@gfcengineering.com and I’ll see what I can do to help.

GFC_Taylor · April 20, 2020, 11:47pm

Hey I just want to clarify a few things:

The rivets have nothing to do with hinge failures. Simply put, if these hinges don’t sit squarely on their mounting surface, weak points can form. Some early campers were built with a foam gasket that had the potential to impede the hinges’ ability to sit squarely. Since discovering this issue we have redesigned the campers to utilize a liquid seal, rather than a gasket, which allows the hinges to sit squarely and remain functional for the long haul.

Wiley, the big dog around here, summed it up earlier in this thread. Here’s what he said:

WileyDavis:

When we began building campers we used a piece of foam seal between the tent frame and the hinge to seal that edge. The issue was that the foam was thick enough to allow the hinge to be installed in a manner that wasn’t perfectly flat, especially at the front and rear corners where it would flare out slightly. This lack of flatness along the hinge line meant that every time the hinge was opened or closed, the pivot line of the hinge had to bend along more than one axis. The hinges aren’t designed to tolerate these multi-axis bends and would eventually start to develop stress cracks (even if you can’t see them, they are there). Once the cracks form, it’s only a matter of time before the hinge fails.

When we switched to the new liquid sealant (Teroson) we eliminated the foam gasket. This means that when we clamp the hinge between the spaceframe and the tent frame, the hinge can lie flat along the tent frame extrusion and is pinched more consistently along its length, preventing the flare at the ends so often seen on the older sealant design. This means that the hinge now bends along one axis, making it much less likely that stress cracks will form. You can see this effect for yourself by folding a piece of paper back and forth to form a pivot line. If the paper is held flat against the edge of a table, the paper will pivot easily along the fold line. but if you add a little bit of curve to the paper, it will resist bending easily and introduce tearing forces. That’s what was happening and what the new sealant eliminates.

We didn’t figure this out right away. We have campers with the old seal design that have been heavily abused off-road without issue. Turns out that the old way we sealed them didn’t necessarily prevent a good hinge installation, it just made it easy to assemble one with a bad installation. Which is why not every camper with the old seal will have failures. And unfortunately we did have a few that got resealed with the old hinges that had already developed stress cracks and eventually failed after resealing.

We have about 400 campers in use now (including test/demo campers and customer builds) and aside from that handful of reseals without hinge replacement, we haven’t had any hinge failures with the new seal design that we’re aware of. If it turns out that we’re wrong about all this (we don’t think we are but it’s always possible to be wrong), we will engineer a new solution and support (via warranty or at-cost replacement parts as applicable) every camper we make as long as we’re still in business.

Cheers,
Wiley

I appreciate your suggestion. It sucks that some of our customers had to go through this, but we are genuinely doing everything we can to resolve these problems for them. Our customers that have experienced problems with hinges will be taken care of through our warrant department on a case by case basis. When we’re able to travel freely we are all looking forward to the Product Improvement Tour that has been in the works.

han · April 21, 2020, 1:05am

A self-leveling solution. As long as the underlying surface is relatively even, that ought to address the problem.

When GFC published their findings & resolution, I appreciated that they were confident that the source of the problem had been found, that it was shared publicly, and that the resolution was put in place as soon as possible. My camper is on the (possibly) affected list, and I’m looking forward to seeing Mike in town, or visiting Bozeman again to have the service performed. Don’t let the C19 get you down.

ETALATE · April 22, 2020, 5:36pm

Thank you Taylor, email has been dispatched.

goinguphigh · May 18, 2020, 5:42pm

Passenger side hinge broke this weekend. Just contacted GFC to see what options are. Super bummed. As soon as I purchased the unit I was concerned about design. It felt really delicate for the intended use of this camper style.

anon72572904 · May 18, 2020, 5:57pm

What build number are you @goinguphigh?

mattyd · May 23, 2020, 1:51am

Add me to the list. Unit #143 with the new sealant. Closed the door and started to hear it crack, then the entire door popped off.

mattyd · May 23, 2020, 1:56am

mode7 · May 23, 2020, 4:23pm

Sorry man that’s a huge bummer! Is sucks to see that the hinges can fail even with the new sealant…

GFC706 · May 23, 2020, 4:37pm

Agreed. This is concerning. I hope this case is an exception. Picking up my camper on Tuesday. I’ll definitely ask them about proper opening and closing techniques. I feel like these failures must be related to one’s opening and closing habits. Don’t know. If I find out anything useful, I’ll post it here.

Peace.

pilitojrs · May 23, 2020, 5:05pm

Guess a lot of people have the same habits.

TReitz · May 23, 2020, 6:37pm

I am convinced it is the over matched upward force of the gas struts.

murphy1377 · May 23, 2020, 7:20pm

Are you having hinge issues?

anon72572904 · May 23, 2020, 8:10pm

There is no special insight on how you open and/or close the doors besides what they say in this video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=904kRf3hCE4

I wonder how many others (if any) have failed with the new sealant…

han · May 23, 2020, 8:23pm

I’ve lost track of the revisions. Does the latest attachment method still use rivets between the hinge & door?

GFC706 · May 23, 2020, 8:24pm

Has anyone made limiting straps for their doors? I’m thinking about somehow attaching small limiting chains to the struts. Don’t have my camper yet, so we’ll see how that goes. I think chain because its easy to count links to ensure equal lengths. Hoping that the chain will take load off of the hinge. I have seen one GFC in person. The doors felt flexy. As the video eludes to, I wonder if haphazardly opening the doors accentuates the flex and causes stress on the hinge over time. I’m going to try to be careful opening and closing the doors and try to incorporate a limit on the struts. I’ll quiz the installer on Tuesday. As I stated earlier, I’ll post any useful info I get here.

Peace.