Exterior door wind catch fasteners…

[Chad D.]

Good afternoon Friends. Previous owner installed a wind catch on the front door of our TT, and a couple screws are pulling out due to inadvertent tugging…

The two screws near the bottom of the door appear to be into some meat, but the other two are into just the door skin and are pulling out. Any advice on which fasteners would be appropriate to fix this up? Bumping up a size feel is like a temporary fix…

T-nuts?
moly bolts?
3M 5100?

what have you used to hold something like this?

[Cate&Rob]

Hi Chad,

The problem with any type of fastener is that the skin of the door is not meant to take the pull force of a door catch. Since your installation is close to the edge of the door where there is an internal frame, I would be inclined to make a reinforcing plate that accepts the four screws from the catch and spreads this load across only the edge of the door where there is an internal frame. A piece of 1/8” aluminum flat bar could be shaped using basically woodworking tools.

Rob

[Chad D.]

Not a bad idea Rob. I’d thought about doing that, but was waiting to see if others have had success with a “less-noticeable” method.

[AZMike]

This my solution. It may or may not work for you depending on your door and axle configuration.

[TedS]

Go with an upsized screw and add an adhesive between the plate and door skin.

[Chad D.]

This my solution. It may or may not work for you depending on your door and axle configuration.

That would work for my rear door, but the OEM magnetic door hold works well. Our front door can’t open more than ~100° or it hits the awning arm. Even with the friction hinge, wind will bang the door into the awning arm.

[AZMike]

My magnetic catch is not very strong. Our door slammed more than I can count from the wind. I thought about mounting another magnetic catch, but a light bulb went off in my head one night. This is a much better solution for us.

[Jlawles2]

If your door hits the awning arm, use pipe foam to protect the door and awning and a bungee strap for keeping it tight?

[Chad D.]

Well, it’s fixed! I used a 4” x 4” x 1/8” piece of aluminum. Carefully scuffed the shine off the door where it would go, as well as the back side of the aluminum plate. Glued it to the door with 3M 5200 adhesive (typically used for sticking things to fiberglass boats when you don’t want them to ever fall off). Remounted the catch to the new aluminum. So much more solid than before…. Took about an hour, and is not obtrusive since the size of the aluminum fits just under a “paint” line on the door.