Rear cupboard sliding door removal

lewisnoble · Feb 25, 2013

Our 2008 Cali is now way out of warranty, so looking to fix what I can myself.

The sliding door (I think it is called a tambour door) has broken at one of the flexible joints. The 'near' section can easily be removed by unscrewing the rail end stops, but the 'far' section, separated from the other part, is hidden behind the cupboard wall - between the cupboard and the wardrobe wall.

Try as I might I have been unable to retrieve it!! Hours have been spent with hooks, bent tent pegs, bike brake cable threaded round etc., but no joy. Head now sore from scratching for ideas. Getting that bit out would enable me to either get a new one or attempt a repair, but I can see no way of 'getting in' to the narrow space where the sliders have ended up.

Removing the few screws visible seems to make no difference. It looks as though the whole cupboard unit has to be removed, which I am not prepared to tackle myself or pay the dealer to do.

Any ideas?? Anyone succeeded with this??

If I cannot find a solution, I plan to fix spring netting secured by hooks over the whole - probably just as good a solution anyway. But I'll wait for ideas . . . . .

Lewis

Andresz · Feb 25, 2013

Hello, I looked into the Service Manual (unfortunalelly I have it in Polish only), and removing the cupboard seems not to be such a big challenge afterall. The manual is translation from German, author is H.R Etzold, "SO WIRD'S GEMACHT: pflegen-warten-reparieren T5 Multivan, Transporter California", is the original title. I did not manage to google it in English, but perhaps it does exist. The cupboard is to be moved as a whole. Just to remove the third battery, and disconnect in multiconnector under the floor beneath the sink. If you had your earth shunt done, there might be another cable going to wheel arch to be disconnected. The storage above the bench needs to be removed, as well as the gas bottle. Water hoses must be disconnected... Well you need to have the manual, but it seems to be easier than spending hours in reaching the hidden fixing parts of the sliding door....

ChrisandPenney52 · Feb 25, 2013

Same problem on our 2008. Failed within a month of end of warranty. Thought it would be a simple job to fix but it does involve taking a lot of the back of the van apart (I think the dealer quoted over £200) so we have duct taped down the broken link on the inside of the door. Invisible from the outside and so far it's held together for two years!

lewisnoble · Feb 26, 2013

Hello Chris and Penny - yes, that's what I had been hoping to do. And your seems to have worked well!! But the separated section of mine, the 'further away from you' section, was stuck between the two thin walls, and try as I might I could not get it out. I am not willing to remove all the kit needed to do it the official way, and I suspect that my attempts to retrieve it (feeding cycle brake cables through to loop round, all sorts of things) ended up jamming it even more than before.

So, I have fixed hooks and bungee netting (often used on boats and indeed many other makes of campervan - similar to the stuff on the scuttle below the glovebox) over the aperture. Works well, and a practical solution.