When we bought the Southwind, there was damage to the left rear were the previous owner had made a sharp turn and the rear end swung around and hit a pole.
Fortunately, the damage was limited to the trim, but the trim also acts as the hinge for the compartment door.
Rather than replace the entire section of trim, I cut out the bad section, just a little over 2 ft that would need to be replaced.
I sent several photos of the two pieces of trim to Colaw salvage. I only needed about 3 or 4 ft of the trim pieces. Within an hour, I got a call that said he had a piece of trim that would fit the Southwind. Rather than replace the full length of the trim, I only wanted to replace about 24 inches.
I removed the door and cut the bad section of trim out. On the door, the upper part acts as a hinge and I used a small pair of vice grips to straighten out the bent and mangled hinge as best I could. I used a small piece of the trim to test the hinge as I went along to make sure I got the hinge as straight as I could.
I then cut a section of the new backing trim to fit the piece I cut off. I then slide the door back onto the old trim, and then slid the new trim onto the door, and screwed the new trim to the wall. The door swung open and closed with no problems.
One important thing I discovered, the backing trim is screwed to the wall of the coach. However, behind the wall there appears to be a tubular metal structure that the trim actually screws to. After breaking several screws, I decided to drill pilot holes, then screw the trim piece to the wall using the pilot holes. If you find you need to replace the trim, consider drilling and tapping these holes if you need to do this.
Once I was happy with the door, I cut the outer trim piece to fit. It snapped into place.
The door swings open flawlessly, the compartment is once again water proof, and the trim looks OK. The repair looks good, there is a slight color mismatch, but no one would notice if I hadn’t pointed it out. I plan on painting the exterior of the Soutwind. Once I do this, everything will match.