05-28-2020, 09:59 AM
I thought I'd throw in my experience to help anyone dealing with issues. I have experienced opening/closing issues twice. The first one (bedroom door) was the door not staying opened when in the opened position. It would freely slide back closed but when closed would stay closed. Newell replaced the pneumatic slide to fix this problem. I asked Newell to save the pneumatic cylinder when they replaced the bedroom door one as I wanted to tear into it and see what failed and how it worked. Newell told me they never tried to repair them or had even ever "looked" inside. The second one was the door would "clunk" hard when opened (bathroom door). These two issues seem unrelated but I think they are the same. I will try and describe my theory on the problem and the fix below.
How they work:
The doors, obviously, open with air pressure. The cylinder works by pushing a small piston back and forty inside the cylinder. Air pressure is supplied to one side of the cylinder to force the piston one way and the opposite side of the cylinder to force it the other way. This opens/closes the door. The piston contains rare earth magnets which "connect" (for lack of a better word) to rare earth magnets on the body (the part that slides on the outside of the cylinder). The piston is centered in the body and held there by the magnetic force.
The problem:
I do a lot of dry camping on BLM which takes me down a lot of rough roads. The last BLM outing my bathroom door started the "clunking" when closed. Hindsight being 20/20, now that I have fixed the door all of this is coming together. Let me give a little back story; I have fixed a small "clunk" on the bathroom door before. This happened to be the screws loosening on the body to door connection that made it "clunk" at the end of opening and closing. That being said I started troubleshooting there first but found no problems. So, I took apart the old cylinder that had been sitting in the bay for a year. These are very simple items but if you aren't mechanically experienced I would not recommend taking them apart (at least not without doing some research first). My theory, which was correct, was that the piston somehow moved outside the centering of the body and could not get back inside because of the magnetic force. Once out of center the piston will still partially connect to the body but pull apart relatively easily in one direction. The magnetic force was still there but the piston was outside the centered "connected" position of the body. I have pictures of the disassembled cylinder I can attach if someone tells me how. Here is a link to a pdf showing parts for the cylinder http://www.smcpneumatics.com/pdfs/ncy2.pdf
The fix:
Since the door was "clunking" when opened I figured the piston was outside the "connected" position on the opened side. I tested this theory by pulling the door towards the closed position (while the door was opening) but before the door was fully opened (and I could still grab it). This resulted in the door disconnecting from the piston's magnetic force and being able to move freely. Next, with the door open I stood in the doorway and closed the door. Seems like a lawyer would throw in a legal disclaimer at this point to say you're on your own here. Anyway, while the door was trying to close I gave it a hard shove open. This, apparently, forced the piston back in the center of the body getting the correct "connection" between the two. The door immediately worked correctly with no "clunking".
I think this sort of fix would have worked on my bedroom door (the one Newell replaced) had I known about it. But, since it was the opposite problem, the door "clunked" when closed vs. opened. Because of this I would have needed to yank the door closed while it was trying to open. I think this would be much harder as the doors are smooth and have nothing to grab ahold of really good. Still I think I could figure out a way to do it and save the $800 (I think thats about what it was) repair at Newell.
In conclusion I now have a used but probably good cylinder assembly if anyone needs one. It has been disassembled, cleaned, lubricated and put back together. But I highly doubt anyone should need one if they are experiencing the problems described above. PM me if you need help.
How they work:
The doors, obviously, open with air pressure. The cylinder works by pushing a small piston back and forty inside the cylinder. Air pressure is supplied to one side of the cylinder to force the piston one way and the opposite side of the cylinder to force it the other way. This opens/closes the door. The piston contains rare earth magnets which "connect" (for lack of a better word) to rare earth magnets on the body (the part that slides on the outside of the cylinder). The piston is centered in the body and held there by the magnetic force.
The problem:
I do a lot of dry camping on BLM which takes me down a lot of rough roads. The last BLM outing my bathroom door started the "clunking" when closed. Hindsight being 20/20, now that I have fixed the door all of this is coming together. Let me give a little back story; I have fixed a small "clunk" on the bathroom door before. This happened to be the screws loosening on the body to door connection that made it "clunk" at the end of opening and closing. That being said I started troubleshooting there first but found no problems. So, I took apart the old cylinder that had been sitting in the bay for a year. These are very simple items but if you aren't mechanically experienced I would not recommend taking them apart (at least not without doing some research first). My theory, which was correct, was that the piston somehow moved outside the centering of the body and could not get back inside because of the magnetic force. Once out of center the piston will still partially connect to the body but pull apart relatively easily in one direction. The magnetic force was still there but the piston was outside the centered "connected" position of the body. I have pictures of the disassembled cylinder I can attach if someone tells me how. Here is a link to a pdf showing parts for the cylinder http://www.smcpneumatics.com/pdfs/ncy2.pdf
The fix:
Since the door was "clunking" when opened I figured the piston was outside the "connected" position on the opened side. I tested this theory by pulling the door towards the closed position (while the door was opening) but before the door was fully opened (and I could still grab it). This resulted in the door disconnecting from the piston's magnetic force and being able to move freely. Next, with the door open I stood in the doorway and closed the door. Seems like a lawyer would throw in a legal disclaimer at this point to say you're on your own here. Anyway, while the door was trying to close I gave it a hard shove open. This, apparently, forced the piston back in the center of the body getting the correct "connection" between the two. The door immediately worked correctly with no "clunking".
I think this sort of fix would have worked on my bedroom door (the one Newell replaced) had I known about it. But, since it was the opposite problem, the door "clunked" when closed vs. opened. Because of this I would have needed to yank the door closed while it was trying to open. I think this would be much harder as the doors are smooth and have nothing to grab ahold of really good. Still I think I could figure out a way to do it and save the $800 (I think thats about what it was) repair at Newell.
In conclusion I now have a used but probably good cylinder assembly if anyone needs one. It has been disassembled, cleaned, lubricated and put back together. But I highly doubt anyone should need one if they are experiencing the problems described above. PM me if you need help.