I know some of you TL guys must think I'm a worry wart, a nattering nabob of negativity. :)
But I came across another item that needs to be maintained for the long run health of the coach body. I noticed rust stains showing at the outer edge of the genset door frame, which led me to check it out.
My unit has 3 access doors in the low side body panels, which are beneath floor level. It has: battery, LP, and genset doors. There is also the tall skinny rear compartment door, which involves both the upper and lower body panels, but it's a different situation because it's an enclosed compartment. The other 3 are open to the elements on the back sides.
There are two problem areas that can let water enter the lower wall panels. First is the screws on the bottom flanges of the oval frames. There is no sealant under the screws, and water collects right on those flanges. So you have to figure that water gets down through the screw holes. Thankfully (I think), those walls are hollow. They have no foam inside. Just filon/luan plywood on the outer skin, and luan and poly sheeting on the inner skin, with air in the middle. So any water that gets in there probably sits down on the aluminum tray that closes off the bottom of the wall. In any event, those screws should be caulked. If they are rusty, they should be replaced too. I happen to have some stainless screws the same size, so I'm going to use those.
Now for the bigger issue. The poly sheeting wrap on the under-chassis side of the walls is simply cut for the door openings, and left loose and un-sealed. When you drive in the rain, water can get inside the sheeting at those openings, and sit against the plywood. To see it most easily without crawling underneath, look inside the lower portion of the tall skinny rear compartment. On mine, it has the same treatment of the poly sheeting being simply cut and loose, although it's inside the compartment so it doesn't matter. What you see in there is what you'll see behind the 3 lower doors.
My genset door frame didn't even look like it was sealed to the body, so I took out the 4 screws and it came right out. Here is a close up of the problem I'm describing:
The way to fix this is to seal the poly sheeting to the rear lip of the door frame. OK, this might not be clear, because the photo shows "frame". That's the frame in the opening. But I'm going to tape from the sheeting to the back lip on the white aluminum oval frame for the door.
I ordered some
4" x 25' Flex Mend tape to do this. But I bet Gorilla Tape would be okay. Supposedly most adhesives do not stick to polyethylene. I called Gorilla and they didn't think it would stick. But I tried a small test piece today and it seemed to be alright. But I've got the other stuff coming, so I'll use it.
As the photo notes, the inner-side wood in the lower part of the opening is wet. Some of it is delaminating. It's not an issue yet, but it needs to be stopped.
