Flagstaff TT Murphy Bed Repair

I read about various problems with the Murphy beds in Forest River travel trailers. The aluminum frame that supports the bed seems to be alright, but after 5 years of constant use the piano hinge connecting it to cabinet unit was separating on the left side. It started out small and gradually grew to over 6″. I didn’t take a picture of the separation, but this is the area I’m talking about.

You can see on the exposed side of the piano hinge there is a screw in every available hole.

 

I wasn’t sure how to fix it, but there was a great guy on the Forest River forum who had done the repair and answered questions for me. 

I purchased nine 2 1/2 bolts, nylon lock nuts, and washers that would go through the hinge, aluminum frame and luan plywood.

Even though the separation was on the left, I decided to get to it from the right side since that storage compartment door was bigger for me to get into. It was still going to be awkward. There’s a panel that protect wiring along the front of the trailer that had to be removed first. Then I cut the luan plywood with a skill knife and removed screws to make the opening to access the area where the piano hinge is. 

I mopped up dust bunnies while I had easy access, then put a towel over the edge of compartment door and crawled inside. You can see screws in every other hole, which happened be the one on the very far end where the separation was occuring so there was 7″ between the last bolt and the end of the hinge. No wonder is was separating. 

I drilled holes in the aluminum frame, starting with 2 on the end where the separation was happening. I worked my way back, drilling and inserting bolts until all 9 bolts were through the piano hinge and then crawled back outside. I had a rag to mop up metal filings from the drilling since I was working in such a cramped space and didn’t want them imbedded in my arms and legs. 

I went inside, raised the bed and put a washer an nylon lock nut on each bolt that was coming through the base frame.

Now the interesting part. The nuts on the inside needed to be held in place while the bolts were tightened from the storage compartment. I came up with 3 vice grips. The bed had to be up to attach the vice grips and and then lowered to crawl in the space behind. When the bed is down the vice grips would hit the bottom of the bed and stop the nut from rotating.

It took 3 rounds of attaching the vice grips in the inside 3 bolts at a time and then going outside to crawl in and tighten the bolts. I really appreciated my drill in helping with this. 

Here’s the hinge with the additional bolts going through.

The last thing to do was replace the wood that I had to remove to access behind the bed. I glued a thin piece of wood to the top and side of the opening allowing about 3/4″ to extend beyond the opening. There had to be something to hold the cut edges of the wood in place.

 

When the glue was dry I replaced the wood and screwed in the two other edges. I sealed the edges with aluminum furnace tape.

The last thing was replacing the panel what protects the wiring to the marker lights on the front of the trailer and the solor inlet. 

All in all it turned out to be not that difficult of a repair. I think it helped being a small size female, but there’s enough room for a man to do this repair. Best part: all it cost was bolts, nuts, washers and some time.