How To Open Shipping Container Doors

​Container cargo doors are quite heavy but easy to operate once you’ve got the knack! Each door is usually equipped with two steel locking rods that run from the top to the bottom of the door. At each end of the locking rod you’ll see a cam and keeper which need to be turned to release the door. To do this you firstly need to move the custom catches up from the handlebar, starting with the right hand door. 

Next, you need to lift and pull the door handles out slightly to allow the cams to be released. Pull the inner door handle out a bit further and then the outer handle, then pull them together to release the door in full.

Voila! Your container is open!

To close the container doors, you just need to do the above process, backwards. Start with the left hand door first , push the door back into place and twist the handles to secure the cams and keepers. Once the cam and keepers are engaged, fully turn the handles until the door is closed. 

If you do have any problems with opening and closing your container, check that the ground and container are completely flat. If the ground is not flat it will cause the container to twist and your doors will not close which is known as “racking”. You can find out more about racked cargo doors and how to fix them on our blog.