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ksbowman's avatar
ksbowman
Explorer II
Oct 24, 2016

Removing cabinets

I want to remove the cabinets in the nose of my 5th wheel to add some support members. There is a false bottom in the cabinets and the bottom screws are hidden. Is it best to remove the liner to get to them or remove the outer skin and trim to get to them?
  • Without going through a long description of how they build these things,

    There is a very strong likelihood that the cabinets are screwed in from the outside, both down from the roof and through the front and sides before the outside finish was put on.
    Big challenge to remove them without taking a lot of stuff apart.

    But in answer to your question, you can likely take the bottom of the cabinet out from the inside. It is most likely stapled on to the framing of the cabinet itself.

    As for the other fastening points, you could carefully drive a skinny wedge in between the cabinet and the ceiling and walls, then insert a hacksaw blade to cut the screws. Be sure to get a thin piece of aluminum flashing or similar to lay against the ceiling and wall panels so you don't damage them.

    I have done this, it's a pain to do and requires patience and time.
  • Agree with BobsYourUncle. RV's are built from the inside-out. The cabinets are screwed in from the outside, through the wall or studs, and into the cabinet. (backwards from a house install). No choice but to cut the screws as you will never be able to unscrew them from the outside of the camper unless you take your camper skin off.

    Good luck! You will need it!
  • Not sure what make/model you have,

    But as someone who recently had to remove two cabinets at the front of my trailer (from Crossroads) to pull off the inner wall skins, because I thought there was a problem with some mould (as it turns out the mould was insignificant and had not migrated inside the walls, so it was all for not), I can tell you that trailers are not generally built with the intention to make it easy to de-construct at a later date. Not sure if my trailer is similar to others but it took me a heck of an effort and time to remove two simple cabinets. My cabinets were put together and secured to the walls with industrial glue, staples, nails and screws.

    And some of the staples and screws appear to have been put in from the outside in (looks like they were screwed through the metal studs and stapled through the inner wall from the outside then the outside skin was put on). I had to then cut those staples and screws flush with the wall after the cabinets were removed to stop them from sticking out from the wall.

    Having said that, most of the screws were fastened through the frame of the cabinet then the false bottoms etc were stapled and/or glued to the frame to hide the screw heads. However, some of the screws were so hard to get to and unscrew that I ended up using a saws-all and sliding the blade between the cabinet and wall to cut the screw.

    I think your best bet would be to remove what ever easy piece of cabinet walls you can to see how many of the screws you can access first, followed by other pieces of cabinet and trim.

    If you plan on replacing the same cabinets back in place, be gentle cause some of the cabinet trim and sheet material are pretty fragile.

    Marv
  • It appears I was typing my first response as two others were doing the same thing.

    I agree wholeheartedly with BobsYourUncle, however, as I stated, I've done it so it is possible, just takes some time, effort and occasional profanity (and a bit of head scratching to figure out exactly how a particular piece is attached).

    I also forgot to mention/warn, if your intention is to also take off a wall to place your supports, my walls were fastened (to metal studs) using the strongest glue I have ever met. It was a beast to get it all off so the studs were fully exposed.

    Marv
  • Agree also with BYU. A few years ago I removed the middle bunk bed from our triple bunk bed KZ Spree and to my chagrin discovered that the bed support pieces of wood affixed to the side and end wall of the trailer were secured with screws that had been run in from outside the trailer during the build. No way was I going to remove the outside skin to gain access to these screw heads so I had to forcibly remove the wood pieces from inside the trailer, leaving some pretty large holes in the wall paneling. Those I patched with filler, then covered the damage with wall border ... no harm, no foul, the end result looked just fine. :B

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