Sliding screen door

Hello everyone! We recently purchased an '06 2950 from a private seller. The screen door seems to be very difficult to slide. Is this normal? I was planning on spraying some silicone spray on the track. Any other ideas? Thanks!

Nobody has any ideas? How about your sliding doors? Do they work smoothly? Ours seems to want to hang up at the bottom.   

I just looked at our screen on a 2010 2350. The leading edge of the screen door moves back and forth on a rigid painted metal track on plastic slides that closely conform to the track shape. Our track is clean so there is no cause for binding there. To avoid problems and minimize wear on the slides I clean the track out each time I clean the coach. The screen material edges brush the tracks on the top and bottom as the door is extended and retracted. There is no opportunity for binding there. The roller mechanism is in a shell and I cannot see what goes on in there. But the only resistance seems to be from a spring motor (if there is one) that rolls the screen material back onto the shell and tensions the screen when extended. There is no nameplate of any other markings on our screen door.

Does your problem occur when you extend or retract the screen or both?

Thank you NC. Best I can remember it hung up both opening and closing. We just got the Cruiser a little over a month ago and it's been at the shop waiting for back ordered leveling jacks since shortly after we got it home. I really didn't think it was typical for it to work that "rough". Hope it's an easy fix!

I was just over looking at my "new" 2006 PC 2551 and tried the screen door.  It was smooth and pulled or snagged nowhere.  The only thing I'm a little leery about is that it really doesn't have a positive latch to hold it closed.  But, it did pull out, stay closed, and return smoothly.  The track did appear to be clean.

Jerry

Jerry, even though it pulls smoothly, does it slide without much effort? You have to tug our ours pretty hard (best I can remember) to open or close it. As a matter of fact, the previous owner said to take your foot and give it a "kick" on the edge of the door towards the bottom to get it to close. I didn't think that could be normal. Thanks.

Yes, it pulled without any great amount of effort.  It was obviously wound around a spring loaded roller, but didn't take any great effort to pull it out.  It sounds like you've got something either fouled with dirt or binding somewhere.  I'd say have your mechanic look at it, but I don't think these are very common and I doubt anyone that didn't work on PCs would be familiar with them.

Jerry

Thanks Jerry. I was afraid of that.     Hope it's not the spring. I'll keep y'all posted. And NC Sailors, thank you too.     ~Trudy

Lots of good advise above.

Adding and reitterating....

1) cleanliness
Make sure everything the screen door is sliding along is clean.  I would not lubricate anything, except as a last resort.

2) alignment
Make sure the leading rigid bar you grab to slide, is aligned properly to the door frame and also to the screen housing.

3) bunching of excess screen material is binding
Maybe the binding is excessive screen material that has wandered toward the top or bottom of the screen roll, causing resistence inside the assembly.

Looking at the screen assembly on my 2007 2350, that screen housing is simply mounted into the door frame with screws.  You might have to remove the screen assembly, lay it flat on the ground, have one person hold the assembly while another person pulls the screen all the way out.  Then slowly retract the screen material back into the assembly nicely aligned.

Come to think of it, you might be able to do that while it's in the door frame.  It would be tricky though.  Have one person up top, the other down bottom, pulling the extra screen material all the way out, then carefully letting the spring pull it all back in while you feed it in well aligned.  Don't let the screen material wander off center, going beyond the roll on top or bottom.

As Ron said cleanliness is an important issue   .  When we got our 2005 2550 almost three years ago it was real hard to work the screen.  I used a pick and then vacume to clean out the bottom groove and the area behind it too.  That's to ensure that the bottom groove is straight and not bent out by a pebble or something.  That helped a bunch.  Then I got some dry silicon spray (not a greasy type) and put a little spray on that groove and on the top slide.  That made it easy to open and close the screen.  It also made it easier to clean it next time.  Now I keep on eye on it and use a brush or broom or vacum whenever I see any dirt in it or have a problem working it. 
We have had the screen bunch up towards the top or bottom occaisionally, but it has been real easy to just close the screen all the way and then open it carefully being carefull to keep the edge perfectly vertical.  ( maybe you could use a cement layers level to keep it vertical.)

Thanks Ron and Mapper. Great advice. Thought we were going to get our "baby" back home yesterday, but I guess it's going to be Monday. Can't wait to start experimenting with the door. Especially can't wait to start doing my mod's. My head is swimming with wonderful ideas. lol  I'll keep ya posted on my progress (whether you care or not    ).

Mine too hung up and unfurled a couple times if that is correct usage.  Canister vacuum cleaned debris out of the track and the thing it winds into and that pretty much solved the
problem.  I didn't use silicone lube since that worried me about attracting dust and leaving it in areas that I couldn't get to.

Now for another problem.  My track seems to kind of float, as in it can move around some, NORMAL???  The screws don't really seem to bite into any substantial structure and are just floating in the holes too.

L. G.

Now for another problem.  My track seems to kind of float, as in it can move around some, NORMAL???  The screws don't really seem to bite into any substantial structure and are just floating in the holes too.  L. G. 

Maybe my post here is relative.
http://forum.phoenixusarv.com/index.php?topic=77.0

Thanks for the ref. Ron.  When it quits raining I will go check that out.  I reached in under the steps and either nothing there, or I was too short armed to feel any structure.
L. G.

Well, I promised I'd keep y'all updated, but I'm kind of slow getting around to it. Seems the screen had gotten bound up at some point and there was a thin strip of screen at the top that had actually torn off and was hanging loose on the roller side of the screen door. I cut it off and I cleaned out the track real good. Then I used the dry silicone spray on the upper and lower tracks. It now works like a charm! I will make sure I keep the tracks good and clean so it doesn't happen again.

Again, thank you all for your great suggestions.