TKE Ent Doors and Drawers

[Dan Hen]

Well it happened to us, we crushed a drawer in the Ent center while opening the door slide.The slide flange and the drawer front are OK but the drawer box and metal side are destroyed. I can make a new box and have a slide but I really do not want this to happen again. We had been putting the bungees with a Ball through the handles but over looked this this morning, maybe they do help.
Has any one have great solution to hold the doors and drawers closed while traveling??
That looks OK

Dan

[Brewer & Nancy]

Dan, go to hardare store and get wooden dowels that will slip thru handle. Have used this on drawers and cabinet doors. Hope this helps.

[Endeavor2BnC]

We now have made it a point to slip through and take a look BEFORE we open up. That's after we had a few mishaps. Nothing major, trim piece off twice, not broken. We have rarely had anything more that would cause us grief. We just make sure that all the doors and drawers are closed and nothing fell on the floor.

[Jim & Bona]

Having suffered a mishap on two slides and a double on the third slide, we now perform a visual inspection at all potential points of interference before we open the slides, including tops (pushed a fallen smoke detector through the top seal on the bedroom slide).

I have added magnetic catches behind each drawer. It's a belt and suspenders thing. We also give each drawer a good thump to seat them before we bring in the slides. Having said all this I'll likely crunch a drawer (I've already done two) in the not too distant future.

[rockintom]

Here's a write up I did on the subject way back when. Check post #69. We still use this dowel on our new 33 RSO. Works great.
Best Practices

[evan0810]

The problem w/ the TKE is you can't inspect for possible collision between drawer and slide before opening up. I would have to go over the sink, land on my head to get back there to take a look (on a 33 anyway). The floor of one slide passes over the floor of the other so there is only a small gap back there and you just can't see drawers on either side. It doesn't matter how hard you slam them shut as a big bump in the road while the unit is surging forward can possibly open them. I haven't opened ours up yet this year and am nervous about doing so. I noticed the thread about using dowel rods and will definetly read w/ interest.
Ed

[janieD]

That was our first major mishap. We did it with the drawer to the computer key board. DH just made it into a drawer since we don't have a desktop computer and added extra magnet catches. Like others have said I do a manual inspection now before we bring the slides out but I can see where that would be a problem in some of the floor plans