Minnie 24V with mild delamination - seal it and forget it?

Boidster wrote:

Also had the center brake light leak into the rear wall. The brake light has a rubber gasket that barely sealed around the hole in the wall for the wires. Dicor fixed that.

Yep, my center brake light has the same issue and both screws had stripped to boot. Luckily there's no visible water damage in the area (yet). I fixed the holes with Mr. Grip (http://tinyurl.com/glvpprk) and the lens seems to fit tighter now, but the gasket isn't really very compressed. I was thinking of cutting a new gasket out of thicker material. Did you just replace the gasket entirely with a bead of Dicor around the edge? I've never used the stuff - can it be applied and smoothed like caulk, for a clean look? Easy to remove the lens if the bulb goes out?

Thanks again for all the help.

I used the old gasket with the brake light and just ran a small bead of Dicor around the outside. It has been a number of years since I did this and I'm pretty sure I didn't use any Dicor under the gasket.

One issue with Dicor is that dirt sticks to it and the bead turns black after a while. Rubbing alcohol does clean it up though and I have found it a good idea to clean the old caulk when doing an inspection for cracks in the caulk. I also found that it is difficult to remove the old Dicor bead, so I now just apply some new caulk over the old where needed, which has worked out OK.

I, too have wondered why the raw edges of the wood laminate aren't sealed somehow at the factory. Seems like a simple thing to do and can't imagine they haven't thought of doing it.

Thanks for the input everyone. I'm still keen to know why they don't seal the walls themselves first, but probably only the mfr knows the answer to that. I'm going to guess "it's cheaper to not seal the edges."

OK so let me phrase the original question a bit differently - if you could seal the edges of the laminate walls without affecting the installation (or removal) of windows and other fixtures, what would be the downside? Like what about just a couple of coats of epoxy? It makes no sense to me to leave the walls open to moisture, but...does the laminate need to "breathe" or something, in a way it can't do through the interior paneling?

Also had the center brake light leak into the rear wall. The brake light has a rubber gasket that barely sealed around the hole in the wall for the wires. Dicor fixed that.

Yep, my center brake light has the same issue and both screws had stripped to boot. Luckily there's no visible water damage in the area (yet). I fixed the holes with Mr. Grip (http://tinyurl.com/glvpprk) and the lens seems to fit tighter now, but the gasket isn't really very compressed. I was thinking of cutting a new gasket out of thicker material. Did you just replace the gasket entirely with a bead of Dicor around the edge? I've never used the stuff - can it be applied and smoothed like caulk, for a clean look? Easy to remove the lens if the bulb goes out?

Thanks again for all the help.

I have a class c and one day I seen some delamination on the side I naturally thought was caused by leak. I had just resealed it a couple months prior. I opened it up no sign of moisture. I think it was a mfg. flaw either bad glue or bad application.Dont know that just speculation. I got glue made for that exact application and fixed the delam.came out great looks like new again. Need any info on the application or any thing else just let me know.Just pm me.It was very easy to fix you would never know it happened.I will trade next year and I was worried about trade in value not now.

We have a 2003 Minnie 24F, bought new in 2003. I have discovered several leak points over the years as follows.

In 2007 on a warm morning after a much cooler night I found condensation on the inside of the windows. Since the MH was stored in the driveway, this was a strong indication of a leak. After some searching around, I found that a long term leak had rotted the front portion of the cabover floor on the passenger side. The leak source was in the sidewall to floor joint where the metal trim strip that was supposed overlap and seal the sidewall had almost no overlap. When I pressed with my thumb on the sidewall just above the trim strip, the gap became obvious, as seen in the picture below.



I sealed the gap with a heavy bead of Dicor and check it often to make sure that flexing going down the road hasn't broken the seal.



A year or so ago I found that the driver's side sidewall to trim strip
showed separation when I pressed on the sidewall, so I applied a bead of Dicor to seal that as well.

I have also found that the front cabover window leaked, but not from the joint where the metal frame meets the front wall. The window is set into a U-shaped rubber that is in the metal frame. I found that the leak point was at the joint where the window glass meets the rubber. The water leaks around the glass and comes in from the rubber to glass seam.

Also had the center brake light leak into the rear wall. The brake light has a rubber gasket that barely sealed around the hole in the wall for the wires. Dicor fixed that.

Lastly, had a leak in the rear kitchen window. Sealed around the edges of the window, but I believe that the actual leak point was the butt joint in the metal frame. All of the other windows had sealant over this joint, but this one didn't. Sealed the butt joint and no further sign of a leak.

Check all the seams often, preventive maintenance is important!

DrewE X 2. No tape. I have taken windows our and resealed them, hardest part cleaning off the old sealer. Dick

DrewE wrote:
The proper way to reseal the window is with butyl tape under the outer flange when it's (re)installed. It's sealed to the outer skin of the RV. I would not try wrapping eternabond around the opening for the window as the extra thickness would likely cause difficulty with the window installation and sealing and doesn't really seem to me to help the situation at all.

Thanks Drew. I was going to use butyl tape (or possibly Eternabond double-sided) for the window flange. Sealing the open edge of the cutout was more to ensure there cannot be any water intrusion no matter what happens to the butyl seal over time, since delamination is such a serious and potentially expensive problem. I'm actually surprised they don't seal the laminate edges before installing them. Just like you would seal the end grain of a cut pre-treated board. Make the entire wall panel - including cutouts - impervious to water so if the normal window seal fails you still won't be risking delamination.

I had not thought about the thickness of the tape exceeding the tolerance of the opening vs. window. The aluminum tape is an interesting idea; more of a roof flashing sort of arrangement instead of a bonded waterproof seal. I'll probably play with a few different non-permanent ideas and end up just doing it the normal way.

Re-bonding using epoxy will be a project for another time perhaps. I'm familiar with the process, but don't currently have, say, a side of my house I can brace against. And I'm not too concerned with pressing the bubbles flat since they're so shallow. I'm more interested in making sure it's not going to get any worse and, if possible, ensuring that it cannot possibly get any worse by permanently preventing water intrusion into the laminate edge.

The proper way to reseal the window is with butyl tape under the outer flange when it's (re)installed. It's sealed to the outer skin of the RV. I would not try wrapping eternabond around the opening for the window as the extra thickness would likely cause difficulty with the window installation and sealing and doesn't really seem to me to help the situation at all. Aluminum foil tape, such as is used for ductwork, would in my opinion be better than eternabond for this application partly because it is thinner, but I'd still go with no tape at all.

If there's a bit of a gap for access, it might be possible to squirt some adhesive (epoxy possibly) down between the outer skin and the plywood or whatever behind it to reattach it (and then rig up some sort of bracing to hold it in place while it cures) prior to resealing, but it hardly seems to me to be necessary for such small areas. Of course, it's not always easy to judge how much damage there is before actually looking at things.

I would examine and reseal as you propose. After that, I'd just keep an eye on it and see if anything changes over time. I like your idea with the eternabond as long as it doesn't make it difficult to seal the window.