Drawers

[GallenH]

My 97 PW has drawers that when they close the front drops down locking them in place so they won't open when driving. This works fine on the small kitchen drawers but we have 2 large drawers under the beds that don't work well. They drop down and hold in place fine but when you pull them out they often don't come out straight and jam up.

So the issue appears to be that if the drawers had traditional bottom or side slides on them that problem would disappear. But I can't figure out how to put a slide on and still have the drawer drop at the end to secure it.

Anyone deal with this and resolve it? The only thing I can think of doing is to put slides in, forget the drop-to-secure feature and put some type of latch on them.

Ideas? Thx.glenn

 

[GeorgeRad]

I use throughout my campervan Southco M61-2 latches. I like them a lot, positive latches, and one finger to open and push / slam to close, no extra motion to latch. I used them for all of my drawers and cabinets use them (except O/H cabinets). Originally, I used black latches but changed them to SS.

 

[Tim R.-ClassB]

Glenn, do your drawers have a center rail? Our '98 PW has those same drawers and one of them was missing the plastic guide on the back of the drawer. Once I installed a new guide the drawer worked much better.

 

[GallenH]

Glenn, do your drawers have a center rail? Our '98 PW has those same drawers and one of them was missing the plastic guide on the back of the drawer. Once I installed a new guide the drawer worked much better.

Yes they do have the center rail. In pulling one drawer out I noticed that the plastic guide is broken off on one side. Can you remember where you got the new guides?

Thx.glenn

 

[Tim R.-ClassB]

I think I got them at the local Ace HW. If not then a local RV dealer will definitely have them. I took one off to bring in and match up.

 

[ballbraindogs]

Wow. I just responded to a previous post about the purchase of a 2000 PW Excel TD.

This is what I did as I hated the funky drawers and there is no way to install a proper slide because there isn't enough room.

"I didn't like the drawers under the beds because they were awkward to pull out. I took the front off of the drawers and put hinges on the bottom of the drawer front and latches on the top so they pull down. I removed the old center metal piece that the drawer moved on. Then I put plastic bins in the space where the drawer boxes were. Way better!!!"

I am happy to provide photos...

Nancy
2000 PW Excel TD

 

[ks@yvr]

The PW drawer slides are the cheapy side/bottom mounts with the front ends stretched so you must lift drawer to slide out. You can unstrech the lip to the slide to make it operate a little easier or just replace them with the same non-modified slides (most lumber stores carry) and a latch on the drawer. A good bottom mount slide would also work but you would need reposition the drawer front as the drawer casing would need to be slightly higher to accommodate quality soft closing bottom slides and add a drawer latch of some sort. There is not enough room for good quality side slides I believe.

I slightly un-modified the slides on the big drawers in our old PW that we used to own to make the drawers easier to open without any issues.