Respraying The Inside of Our Motorhome’s Habitation Door

The inside of our Hymer B544 motorhome habitation door was yellowing and cracking after a couple of decade’s use. We’ve given it a new lease of life by repairing the damage around the lock with fibre glass and respraying the door.

Hymer B544 habitation door cracked door lock moulded cover
BEFORE: the whole door was yellowing, and the moulded area covering the lock mechanism was falling apart, held together with tape.
Motorhome habitation door and moulded lock cover repaired with fibre glass and painted with plasti-kote
AFTER: the moulded area’s been repaired from behind and the whole door resprayed. It’s not the neatest of finishes in places, we admit, but it’s much better than before.

After reading lots of helpful descriptions on the motorhome forums, we opted to use these materials:

This is the PlastiKote spray we used for our motorhome's habitation door
This is the PlastiKote spray we used for our motorhome’s habitation door

We made sure the door was cleaned and wiped it down with alcohol wipes before painting it. The only real problem we had was with the deadbolt! It’s probably been in place for quite a while now. Two philips-headed bolts go through the lock plate on the back of the door and into the lock holder which is pulled into place from the front of the door. These were seized and had to be drilled out. We found some replacement bolts at B&Q but they weren’t quite the right diameter, and the countersunk heads protruded a small amount above the lock plate, which means the lock wouldn’t rotate. After some faffing we ground down the front of the countersunk heads and managed to use nuts to attach the front of the lock. The mechanism is still a little stiff so we might have to try and find a replacement lock which has the hole for the lock in the same place.

A couple more photos below.

Motorhome habitation door before painting with plasti-kote.
The door before painting and the seized beadbolt plate.
Motorhome habitation door painted with plasti-kote.
The painted door (still drying at this point). The masking tape and newspaper has been removed.

Cheers, Jay and Ju

3 replies
  1. Mick says:

    Jay,

    I would recommend trying “GRP Leisure” on facebook (no relationship with th business, apart from using him). He is based in Derby and we have replaced the following plastic parts on our 2000 B544 Classic with GRP parts from him this year – headrest backs (cracked), bathroom basin (cracked splashback) and bathroom mirror bottom support brackets (both cracked and aged). He can supply many parts from existing templates and can even make up replacements if you supply the original damaged part.

    Have a look at his facebook page. Prices are good and his service is excellent, our parts were delivered by hand.

    Mick

    Reply
    • Jason says:

      Thanks Mick – a few people have mentioned this chap’s services in a positive light. We’ll no doubt need him at some point as stuff continues to age! Cheers, thanks for posting this info, Jay

      Reply
  2. Baz says:

    This is good news. I had never thought about how to repair or replace cast plastic/GRP parts before. We have a 2004 Swift Sundance which the garage fitter said has a dodgy sink unit. Apparently they are all too thin (to save weight) and leaks or cracks appear easily which cause major problems as they can’t be repaired and are out of production. When offered a Sundance as a trade in it is the first thing he checks. Because of this we have not used the sink for nearly 15 years so it has yellowed with age but is otherwise as new. Now we know about GRP Leisure we can have a wash again!

    Reply

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