Removing rear door spring on Momentum 31G travel trailer?

[bossman2024]

I removed the three season doors and also the patio sides from my 31G rear door as I never use those and they kinda get in the way when I am loading and unloading my motorcycles at the track. Its way better without these, but now that I do not have the patio sides attached to the rear door it's not heavy enough to overcome the springs installed so it will not stay down without me putting weights on the end of the door which is what I do now. It will hover just below level if I just let it drop.

I checked the back of the trailer and it has space for 6 total springs, and only 5 of them are installed. So I suspect if I can remove the left most spring and just have four springs it would now work the same as it did before I removed the patio sides. But I took a quick look and its not clear how I can slide that spring off? Has anyone done that before? Looks easy enough to remove the brackets, but the rod through the middle has a retainer on the end so it's not clear how that can be removed?

 

[Hoopy Frood]

JMO, but it's seems obvious the retainer at the end of the shaft will have to be removed if you want to slide that spring off. Is it welded in place, or pressed in/on?

 

[bossman2024]

Right, it needs to be removed but its not clear to me how it is held on. I don't see any threads, but I have not investigated too closely. Was hoping someone else has already done this and knows exactly how to do it

Clearly if someone had a spring fail I am sure GD has a way to replace the broken spring. I did reach out to Lippert who makes the rear door, so hopefully they have some advice.

I don't think I want to undo the whole thing as then all the springs will come off and I have no idea what else would hold the door in place. Maybe it would be safe to do that, but not entirely sure and don't want to door to fall out even if its clamped in place with the rear door locks.

 

[Hoopy Frood]

Well, what I would do is take off the bolts that hold that last bracket and see if the bracket will slide off the shaft. The nylon could be just held in place by the bracket with the entire shaft secured at some other point. The two brackets could just slide off, making removal of the spring easy.

 

[bossman2024]

Yeah probably worth a try. I wonder how much tension the spring has on it when its flat? I would hope that flat they have little tension on them.

Its pouring with rain today so gonna try later when its cleared up (or next week).

 

[Hoopy Frood]

When mine is in the up position like yours, there is zero pressure on most of the springs.