Re: [VACList] Bargman L-400 Door Latch / Lock/Trimark or Fastec replacement

[James Clark <jec1938@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Roger...

When the lock on our 78 Safari broke, I was advised that the "fix" was 
about $500 for a custom lock from Airstream or a lot of work with a 
Trimark, or Fastec copy of the Trimark to shape the bolt and fabricate a 
patch to fit the lock to the door...They seemed to think Airstream had made 
a "patch" for another lock, but they didn't have either patch or lock...

I chose to purchase a Fastec at the RV supply that was close to the park 
where the failure had occurred and spend a couple of days getting 
everything back together...To make things right, the patch should have been 
fabricated in a machine shop where the lock can be inset into the door so 
that you don't have to file about a quarter of the bolt off to get the lock 
to close..I was able to get away with a flat patch from some fairly heavy 
aluminum sheet I had in the truck.

Looking back on the fiasco, I would have fixed the lock if the parts had 
been available at the dealers I worked with and if the parts were not 
available but the lock was at $500.00 and nothing less available, I would 
have bit the bullet and borrowed the $500...A proper patch would have cost 
a couple of hours of machine shop work and time to come up with the 
instructions on the amount of inset etc... The  Fastec lock is definitely 
not in the caliber of what should be installed in the Airstream, but when 
the original broke, I got nothing but static from the shop I was working 
with at the time... Kind of "we can't help from here and we don't recommend 
you try it on your own.."  As I recall the effort required, the lock fit 
the hole in the edge of the door fairly closely, but the face was too small 
and the bolt too close to the front edge of the door... The bolt didn't 
stick out of the door as much as I would have liked, but shimming the 
strike and filing the bolt made a workable setup and a later inspection by 
a factory mechanic at the South Dakota International yielded an OK as far 
as he was concerned.  The Fastec is still on the trailer...Spare keys are 
another story...

I later learned to call Charlie Burke at American Way when the world turns 
badly and take what he says as absolute straight to the best of his ability 
and run with the recommended parts if at all possible...I am sure that 
there are others out there that will provide the same service, I just 
haven't found them....

Best of luck...

Jim Clark