How to Easily Change Out the Door Lock on an RV

As part of the SOWLE RV series “What You Need to Know NOW to be a Safe RVer”, this is also part of our Maintenance and Safety series, and we are going to show you How to Easily Change Out the Door Lock on an RV. We are showcasing the AP Products Bauer Motor Home Door Lock as well as what is available for your Travel Trailer, the AP Products Electric Travel Trailer Lock.

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Our Situation with the Door Lock on Our Motorhome

Hello this is Mark with SOWLE RV. As part of our Maintenance and Safety Episodes, we are going to show you How to Easily Change out the Door Lock on an RV with AP Products Bauer Motor Home Door Lock.Our lock has been giving us issues and the spring inside is allowing it, going down the road, to open the door. Not safe!

How to Easily Change Out the Door Lock on an RV

On this door lock, you are going to have two screws to remove on the actual latch and lever arm. Once you remove those, you will go ahead and remove two screws that are on the back side of the actual arm. I will go ahead and get those removed. Once your knob is free, you will just grab the back side of the handle and pull it off. The handle itself slides into the door and you will just move it backwards and slide it out. The springs on the door lock, one here and one here (see video), that is what hold pressure on your door handle, allowing it to remain closed. Once they start getting weak, it will just allow your handle to move around, causing the door to open on its own while moving down the road.

Why SOWLE RV Likes This Model of Door Lock

I like this model (AP Products Bauer Motor Home Door Lock) for the fact that I can walk up to my camper on any day, lock it and unlock it with the keypad. You can put your own code in the keypad so no one else knows it, or you can give someone access to your camper one time by changing that code, and then coming back and changing it so you yourself only have it.

Reinstalling the Assembly

Now that we have the assembly ready to be reinstalled, all you are going to do is go in from the backside, put it through the two holes where the pins on the front side lock in place, come around, and you will reinstall your two screws. Now that your electrical is hooked, we are going to set the handle in place. You want to keep this handle latch flat so it will go in behind the bar. Install your four screws that hold the inner and outer handle together.

TNT (Tips and Tricks)

A really good tip here: do not use a power tool to start these. If you strip out the handle, you are just going to make life miserable trying to repair it.

The Striker

The striker place, with this design, we did not have the deadbolt before, so it was not accessible to just put in. I did have to take away about a ½ inch of material on the top side and then I went ahead and doubled the edge to make it smooth to where the new striker plate would fit in. I will get it in there. Now we have our striker plate in place. This is where I would adjust that if anything is “off”.

Setting the Code

With this latch assembly, when you first install it, in order to set your code, you are going to hold down the ¾ button as well as the lock (key symbol) and the products button at the bottom that says “BP”. You will hold those two, you will get three chirps, a blue light will flash, then you set your four-digit code.

Conclusion of How to Easily Change Out the Door Lock on an RV

Thanks so much for joining us today for How to Easily Change Out the Door Lock on an RV! As always, SOWLE RV encourages you to (safely) Get Out And Live and Explore the World Around You! If you enjoy what you hear, please check out our blog at SOWLERV.com and follow us on social media.