Rear door limiter / stop strap

Whilst trying to establish the cause of the water-over-the-floor issue mentioned in my last post one of my 2019 Boxer van’s back doors got caught by the wind, flew round to the buffers, compressed the buffer excessively and smashed the rear door window. Fortunately there was no apparent damage to the bodywork, and I should have known better since it was a bit windy (Storm Otto last Thursday) and should have turned the van to face upwind.

I had previously wondered about the door stays, which seemed tenuous. They only have a mild detent at 90 degrees and then rely thereafter on the rubber buffers to stop them swinging too far. There is just the single stay fitted at roughly half height on the door post/door. On looking at similar vans at the NEC the other day I see that they all have a secondary stay at roughly the same height which seems to hold the door positively at 90 degrees unless you press a large round button set in the door. The chap on the AS stand didn’t seem very interested but said that all Peugeots have these secondary stays. I don’t think mine has, but I can’t check at the moment because it is with the dealer for other attention.

Has anybody come across this issue please? I see that there are some after market restrictors or straps etc. available but I am not sure what might fit and/or be the best solution.

Thank you Paul. I wondered if it was something like that. The question may be whether it is a simple matter to retrofit, I.e. whether there remain suitable tappings etc. in the door and frame structures. I think I need to find a Peugeot dealer!

Just to feed back on this matter (smashed rear door window due to door swinging full open in gale) I finally got the van back Tuesday after attention to a Sargent problem (flashing but otherwise inoperative EC700 CP, which apparently turned out to be a spiky solar regulator) and yesterday I took a look at the rear doors, specifically the arc restrictor stays.

Of the two apparent stays in each door one is just a plastic wiring conduit, which I had not appreciated before although obvious in hindsight.

The (plastic coated) steel stays are clearly designed to have a spring loaded pawl to restrict the normal arc of movement to 90 degrees, probably in accord with the detent, and indeed there is a hole in the end of each stay to take the pivot pin for that springy thingummy. As Paul says the after market stays available from various sources on eBay etc. have this pawl, but my van is clearly one of those where they were omitted. I could not find where I could get the necessary push button to install in the door card to release the pawl, if one wanted to open the door beyond 90 degrees, although I didn’t try too hard but I guess AS would know.

On the Kingham, with bed and loo at the back, I cannot envisage why I would want to open the doors beyond about 90 degrees. 

So, given that I had one door card off and wanted to get the job done, I have used alternative means. I removed each stay, drilled a 6mm hole through the stay about 40mm in from the hole in the end and fitted an M6 x 40mm bolt through the new hole. Packed with nuts (two against the bolt head three at the other end. Locked up and peined over, this effective 10mm diameter “cross bar” comes nicely to rest against the plastic detent ball housing just as the proper spring pawl would do, with the door at about 100 degrees of arc from closed. The precise location of the bolt is fairly optional but I set the position so that the door just opens a tad beyond the detent which allows the Thetford cassette to slide out very comfortably.

The first side took two hours to do, the second about 20 minutes. The reason was that with the first side I foolishly pulled the stay out of the detent balls. Getting the stay back through the very strongly sprung detent balls was a real struggle! So if anybody else has the same issue as Paul suggests and attempts the same fix you need to remove the whole assembly complete via the door cavity. Do not pull the stay out of the detent balls! It does just wriggle out through the hole in the door frame via the door cavity.

I suppose I could have shelled out £40 for a pair of new stays and just not bothered with the release button but this fix cost pence and got the job done.

If anybody wants photos I can send them.

Relaxez-Vous wrote:I  made several posts on this subject in the past though I haven't managed to provide any links.

Fiat apparently were making the Boxer rear doors and perhaps sometime around early 2019 stopped fitting the rear door restrictors. The trim panels on our 2019 rear doors had fabric covering the holes where the restrictor buttons would have come through. I raised the matter with my Peugeot dealer and they sent photos off to Peugeot. Subsequently the buttons and proper door stays were installed without cost.

Reading your post I am not sure what you have on your rear doors. It seems that you do have the black buttons, so I assume you have the proper door stays. It sound like the strong wind would have overcame whatever you had.

Thanks but no. The stay bars were there but the only thing (unsuccessfully) stopping the doors flying round to 180 degrees plus were the spring loaded detent balls. The stays are the same as the ones offered on various eBay sites but without the spring loaded pawls on the ends, which the push buttons presumably release to open the doors beyond 90 degrees. My doors do not have the push buttons, or the holes for them. Plain un-drilled door cards.

Anyway, fixed now. I could not be bothered to try and claim on the expired warranty since in truth my modification was very easy apart from getting the first stay bar back in the detent balls, which is just another of life’s little learning curves!