Manufacturing replacement Dometic hinge pins
This documents the manufacture of replacement hinge pins and springs for a Dometic RMD 10.5XT RV refrigerator’s door latches. This should work for any of the related refrigerators in the series: RMD10.5S, RMD10.5XT, etc. I’ve posted this here as a reference in hopes that anyone else having the same problem can find a solution.
Background
While camping last summer, I accidentally broke the hinge on the handle of the refrigerator in our camper. In parts diagrams this is referred to as a “ledge cover”. I also lost the spring that keeps this ledge cover tight. The pins themselves are brittle plastic, and I noticed when taking the door off that two more were damaged or at risk of breaking.
Dometic support was remarkably unhelpful, telling me the part was obsolete and there was no replacement available, and that they couldn’t help any further. They did at least give me some parts diagrams with an identifiable part number: 289078823. I was able to find that listed on a German website, but only the pins, no springs.
The diagrams, in case you need them:
Finally, this document is a diagram I was able to locate that explicitly shows the pins and springs in detail. A screenshot for reference:
This lists part numbers for both the pins and springs, but those don’t appear to be used in any online shops.
Replacement springs
Since I’d lost the spring and had no other specifications to go on, here’s what I measured from the remaining one:
- 0.375” (9.5mm) length
- 0.224” (5.7mm) outer diameter
- 0.172” (4.32mm) inner diameter
- 0.025” (0.635mm) wire diameter
It’s a stiff spring, needing a couple pounds of force to compress it by half. This is an estimate with a kitchen scale, but I was able to find a close-enough match, a compression spring from McMaster-Carr. This is very slightly narrower than the original spring, and a touch softer, but it works fine.
Replacement pins
I was glad to discover the threading on the pin is a standard M5. I bought some M5/0.8 20mm screws, equivalent to this flat-head screw from McMaster-Carr. I used a handheld drill and a file as a poor version of a lathe to grind the threads flat and reduce the height of the head to match the original pin. A hex nut protected the top few millimeters of threads during the process, and I was able to create a nearly identical pin to the plastic original:
The Philips head is ground down pretty far but there’s just enough left to screw it into the door.
I expect these to last the life of the refrigerator.