2006 Hallmark Ute rotted wood repair
I'm going to start off my first post by saying I've been perusing this site for sometime, and have learned a lot...espcially lubing Happy Jacks. My wife and I have had this Hallmark Ute for a year....
Forum Discussion
Many of the pieces forming the back wall are only .75" x 1", even the two forming the outside edges running from top to bottom. The 1" pieces only have one staple holding things together. I can see (my guess) that from the normal highway flexing, most are quite loose, more so because they got wet. I'm replacing those two 62"ers (vertical edges) with pieces 2" wide. They are the pieces that the jacks lag into. I don't trust the 1"ers not to flex when the camper is sitting on the jacks.
The wood you see behind the "sticks" is 1/8" luan. Not too keen on using luan again, so I'm going to do a little searching for something synthetic. Maybe Spaceage Synthetics has composite material in 1/8" sheets.
During the dimension recording, I was taking a good look at the bottom RH corner (picture above). It appears to have an approx 12" piece added to the "apron" running across the bottom. My thought is at some point a section of the original 4" wide piece must have rotted so someone cut it off and added a new piece back. Hard to believe the manufacturer didn't have a piece of wood long enough to run the full width.
Instead of mowing the grass yesterday, I spent the whole day measuring and making a print. A lot of the wood didn't have clean cut ends because they were rotted off. Also, much of the wood just crumbled away at the slightest touch.
The only part that has me concerned is the bunk area. All of the wood will be replaced with composite, but I'll need some way to hold the roof up because the mechanical apparatuse for raising the roof is connected to either the side walls, front wall, or both. I may be able to tie the front portion of the roof to the trusses in my shop. I'll also need to figure out how the fiberglas bunk assy is attached. right now I have two 2x4s propping it up because the rotted wood is no longer strong enough.
Anyway, I've got yard work and a "honey do' list this week before I finish tearing down the remaining two walls.
The wood you see behind the "sticks" is 1/8" luan. Not too keen on using luan again, so I'm going to do a little searching for something synthetic. Maybe Spaceage Synthetics has composite material in 1/8" sheets.
During the dimension recording, I was taking a good look at the bottom RH corner (picture above). It appears to have an approx 12" piece added to the "apron" running across the bottom. My thought is at some point a section of the original 4" wide piece must have rotted so someone cut it off and added a new piece back. Hard to believe the manufacturer didn't have a piece of wood long enough to run the full width.
Instead of mowing the grass yesterday, I spent the whole day measuring and making a print. A lot of the wood didn't have clean cut ends because they were rotted off. Also, much of the wood just crumbled away at the slightest touch.
The only part that has me concerned is the bunk area. All of the wood will be replaced with composite, but I'll need some way to hold the roof up because the mechanical apparatuse for raising the roof is connected to either the side walls, front wall, or both. I may be able to tie the front portion of the roof to the trusses in my shop. I'll also need to figure out how the fiberglas bunk assy is attached. right now I have two 2x4s propping it up because the rotted wood is no longer strong enough.
Anyway, I've got yard work and a "honey do' list this week before I finish tearing down the remaining two walls.
