Motorhome advice: How to repair a Hartal habitation door lock

On my 2013 Bailey Approach SE 760 motorhome, based on a Peugeot Boxer, I suffered an issue with my Hartal habitation door not locking correctly. At first I thought it was an electrical issue (thought to have been caused by a replacement instrument cluster), but closer investigation revealed it to be a mechanical issue.

The first thing I did was to contact Hartal, who provided me with some documentation giving clarity to the workings of the door and likely causes of issues through its fault diagnosis spreadsheet. This confirmed that the problem was likely to be mechanical rather than electrical. I then contacted my dealer, which very kindly advised me on the removal of the internal panel to get access to the habitation door’s locking mechanism.

I also contacted Bailey’s technical department for its input (which thought that my removing the instrument cluster would be the likely cause). A Peugeot engineer, who advised on taking the instrument cluster out, did confirm, though, that removing this should not cause a permanent fault on the central locking system.

So, the problem had nothing to do with the removal of the instrument cluster, which has a winter home on top of our wardrobe. The problem was definitely a mechanical one. I believe that later vehicles may not have the same problem. Overall, my costs were simply the purchase of three plastic scrapers from B&Q and my time. The nuts and bolt used in this fix were skulking away in my shed, left over from my apprentice days oh so many years ago. Armed with this support, I now had the confidence to attack the problem as follows.

To repair a Hartal habitation door lock, you will need:

• Plastic ice scrapers (£2.95 for a pack of three from B&Q). You could also use plastic trim removal tools
• Suitably sized set screw or bolt with matching pair of nuts (or a Nylok) 
• Electric drill and bit to suit the bolt diameter used 
• Selection of screwdrivers.

1 Enter the motorhome through the cab door to open the habitation door from the inside. Remove the protective covers (if any are fitted) and unscrew the screws holding the grab handle and the internal lock latch handle.

2 Using plastic ice scrapers (or plastic trim removal tools if you have them), pry off the internal beige half-moon panel covering the locking mechanism. The door panel is secured in place by five plastic studs.

3 Inspect the locking mechanism on the door as you lock and unlock the door via the remote locking key. It all looked OK from the inside.

4 This is the plastic inner section of the door handle mechanism, which also looked to be undamaged.

5 Next, remove the outer locking handle via the four self-tapping screws that go through the internal lock baseplate. I identified that one of the cast metal rods that operate a U-shaped actuator had broken – the small part at the edge of this picture.

6 Rather than buy another external handle, which cost £50, I improvised by drilling a small hole through the side plate, which held the broken rod, and fitted a 4BA bolt (you could use metric fixings) with two nuts and a spring washer to hold it securely. Take care to ensure that it doesn’t interfere with the black plastic U-shaped actuator, until the handle is pulled (ie how it should work).

7 The inside of the door locking mechanism looks like this – the black box with the rubber bellows and wiring is the central locking actuator and was working fine.

8 Assemble the outer lock back into the door and clip the inner beige panel back into place. I then checked that the locking mechanism worked using the remote key fob and also that I could open it physically from inside and outside the 'van. Eureka! All was good. I then refitted the door grab handle and the lock pull handle to finish. Result! 

This feature was originally published in the March 2018 issue of MMM magazine. Want to read more like it? Subscribe to MMM magazine today for your monthly does of technical motorhome advice.