Baggage Door Replacement with a Larger One...

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I recently purchased a brand new Impact 303 and it has a pretty nice storage area under the Queen bed area up front. The Baggage door on the outside however, seems pretty small and looks like it should/could have been bigger. My question is this. Has anyone every replaced their existing baggage door access with a larger one? The area of the existing door would need to be cut out in order to install a larger door, so the obvious questions would be....is a jigsaw with a fine tooth blade the tool to use? Any particular brands of doors that are of higher quality than others? Any issues with water leaking after the install? By enlarging the opening, I could go from a 20" x 60" slide in the compartment to a 30" x 60" slide in the compartment. No possibility of a either side slide as the Onan generator is sitting on the other side of the compartment.

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So there have been 88 views of this thread so far and no one has replaced their basement/baggage door with one that is a bit larger? Anyone?

[chuckster57]

If your cutting out a larger opening, you might cut through some structural members. Take the existing door out and take a look, I'm thinking you will find vertical beams on either side and they might be load bearing.

If there isn't any beams then I would say cut away. Otherwise, you may want to rethink, or at least add supports at both ends.

[JRTJH]

Apparently not, and here's my perspective on attempting it:

The aluminum framework for the trailer is welded. The construction calls for a welded aluminum tube support to be installed in the frame "of the appropriate size" to support the installation of the cargo door frame. Once the trailer is assembled, the wall assembly (sandwiched foam/luan/FILON) would have to be "disassembled" or otherwise "de-constructed" to gain enough access to cut away the aluminum tubing framework and re-weld it in the proper location for the larger door. Then, the foam/luan/FILON wall would have to be reconstructed to cover the modified framework. That would mean, in all probability, replacing a significant part of the trailer sidewall to gain an acceptable cosmetic appearance.

The alternative, cutting away the aluminum tubing and installing a wooden frame to support the new door is a possibility, but with that would come a weakened "original construction" and possible damage from the twisting/vibration of towing the trailer.

While there are some people who have installed doors in locations where there wasn't an "OEM" door, most of those have been in trailers with frames that were constructed for "optional doors" in that location. As an example, some trailers are built with a dinette booth with an outside access door in part of the booth base. If the same model trailer is ordered with a dining table/chairs, then obviously the access door is not installed and the wall is left "blank". If an owner elected to install a dinette booth, the framework is already there for the door, should he elect to add the access door.

My "opinion" is that you'd probably have some issues with the cargo door frame weakening over the "long haul" causing some problems with the hinge flexing which would lead to leaks and future water damage. so, while it's entirely possible to install a larger cargo door, the long range reliability probably wouldn't be there.

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John, thank you so much for your detailed explanation and well thought out response. I guess it's going to be something that I would have liked to do, but it's just not worth all of that effort to disassemble and reconstruct that area of the basement. I may look into possibly modifying a 20" x 60" slide to gain some additional slide area. In other words, the part of the slide that doesn't come out of the opening, being made a little wider on one side or possibly both. I'll have to wait until I get a slide for that area and see how it goes.

Thanks again for your response.