5th wheel rebuild from major water damage
The Before part 2. The duct tape was used to get it home from Oklahoma in January. It is a 2006 5th wheel 32' bunkhouse. Bad repair job from previous owner They used close to an inch thic...
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The next part was a little bit tricky. We were repairing the roof with a patch a couple of feet wide but keeping the rest of the roof.
After a consultation with the RV repair shop they gave us good instructions as to how to accomplish this best. One thing we would not have thought of on our own was to overlap the new front rubber OVER the old even though the slope on the roof would have made you think the other way around. The RV repair guy's reasoning was that there is a much greater force of rain and wind driving down the road at 65 mph than sitting in the driveway. Chances of the rain working itself under a crack are greater on the road so overlap it accordingly. If the repair would have been in the rear of the trailer instead of the front it would be the other way around.
We overlapped the new about 6 inches over the old.
Unfortunately we had to buy another special glue where the two roof rubbers met. Apparently you can't use the same glue you use to glue the rubber to the wood. Pretty pricey but I guess we had to have it. We only needed enough to do a six inch splice the width of the trailer. The rest will be up for sale if anyone needs some let me know.
The application is the same as gluing the rubber to the wood. But MAKE SURE TO LET THE GLUE TACK A GOOD LONG WHILE.
On part of the roof I didn't wait long enough before gluing down and it created air pockets which must have been from the chemical reaction. It was smooth and flat at first but after a little while the bubbles started to appear. They really irritate me but no matter what I did I couldn't get them go away. Perhaps over time they will flatten. For now I'm glad they are 12 feet up in the air where I can't see them or it would bug me every time I saw them.
When we were about ready to put the trim on we realized the RV store didn't quite sell us the right trim. I think it would have been better to have a flat type trim instead of one with the plastic over the screws but at this point we weren't going to change it.
Next run a strip of butyle tape on your trim then flip it over, line it up and screw it in. MAKE SURE YOU LINED UP TO SCREW INTO A ROOF TRUSS!!! If you don't do this your screws have a real good chance of working themselves loose and your repair is going to leak! Screwing into a truss is CRITICAL!!! If you have to make your repair larger to make this happen DO IT!
After sliding in the plastic trim over the screw heads we covered the whole thing with EternaBond tape. This is VERY VERY IMPORTANT if you want everything to stay water tight for a long time. Some people just caulk the trim but this can fail. For a repair like this it is much better to use the EternaBond tape. After the tape we caulked the edges of the EternaBond tape (no photo). Hopefully water will never ever get in.
After a consultation with the RV repair shop they gave us good instructions as to how to accomplish this best. One thing we would not have thought of on our own was to overlap the new front rubber OVER the old even though the slope on the roof would have made you think the other way around. The RV repair guy's reasoning was that there is a much greater force of rain and wind driving down the road at 65 mph than sitting in the driveway. Chances of the rain working itself under a crack are greater on the road so overlap it accordingly. If the repair would have been in the rear of the trailer instead of the front it would be the other way around.
We overlapped the new about 6 inches over the old.
Unfortunately we had to buy another special glue where the two roof rubbers met. Apparently you can't use the same glue you use to glue the rubber to the wood. Pretty pricey but I guess we had to have it. We only needed enough to do a six inch splice the width of the trailer. The rest will be up for sale if anyone needs some let me know.
The application is the same as gluing the rubber to the wood. But MAKE SURE TO LET THE GLUE TACK A GOOD LONG WHILE.
On part of the roof I didn't wait long enough before gluing down and it created air pockets which must have been from the chemical reaction. It was smooth and flat at first but after a little while the bubbles started to appear. They really irritate me but no matter what I did I couldn't get them go away. Perhaps over time they will flatten. For now I'm glad they are 12 feet up in the air where I can't see them or it would bug me every time I saw them.
When we were about ready to put the trim on we realized the RV store didn't quite sell us the right trim. I think it would have been better to have a flat type trim instead of one with the plastic over the screws but at this point we weren't going to change it.
Next run a strip of butyle tape on your trim then flip it over, line it up and screw it in. MAKE SURE YOU LINED UP TO SCREW INTO A ROOF TRUSS!!! If you don't do this your screws have a real good chance of working themselves loose and your repair is going to leak! Screwing into a truss is CRITICAL!!! If you have to make your repair larger to make this happen DO IT!
After sliding in the plastic trim over the screw heads we covered the whole thing with EternaBond tape. This is VERY VERY IMPORTANT if you want everything to stay water tight for a long time. Some people just caulk the trim but this can fail. For a repair like this it is much better to use the EternaBond tape. After the tape we caulked the edges of the EternaBond tape (no photo). Hopefully water will never ever get in.
