2007 Fleetwood Element- Cobalt: Advice needed

bondebond, Thanks for all the great info!

Manual, Good tip to use vehicle as wind break from your best guess at the wind direction. Actually, even try to keep area around PUP open enough to drive vehicle to be able to 'place it' as a wind break if winds shift. :o)

Park the TV upwind of the pup. It's amazing how much of the wind force that diverts if the TV is a van or SUV.

My responses to your first four questions:

1) I would not do anything to the roof. It will be fine in 40 MPH winds. It will sway in the wind (yes, I know firsthand) but it takes an awful lot before any damage would occur. Typically, the entire PUP gets blown sideways and pushed around before anything happens with the roof. Or at least what has been reported here and elsewhere and the pictures I've seen after storms.
Honestly, anchoring the PUP frame to the ground would be more useful. Drive a couple of rebar stakes into the ground at the front and rear, attach some ratchet straps to the stakes and the tongue and rear frame attachment points and call it done. However, if he's going to have that kind of an issue at Burning Man, there's a whole lot of other people in more dire straits than your friend. I would not do a thing on the roof aspect. I don't mean to sound condescending but I think you're over-thinking this a bit.

That said, I do know of a friend who built a strap system to minimize the swaying, which generally only happens side to side and not nose to rear. Be careful about cinching those down to the ground too hard as you've just added extra load to the roof's lift system. And I would do nothing that unnecessarily adds holes to the roof as that is the single greatest point of failure with PUPs - water damage through the roof.

2) Eternabond is an excellent answer for this issue. This is the second PUP I have owned and I've used it on both as preventative measures against roof leaks. I ordered a 4" wide, 50 foot roll and did the center seam on 2006 Fleetwood. I will check on it periodically but I have full confidence that it will never leak at that location. It looks like a tape but is truly a sealant that is just in a roll form. The sealant is about 1/8" thick and is gray with a white cover for aesthetics. They dropped the lifetime warranty officially because it was being used in Antarctica and only lasting about 25 years in full exposure to the sun and extreme temps.
I have also used Dicor Lap Sealant and it is an excellent product. You just have to keep an eye on it and expect to touch it up every few years. It's the same with the other quality RV-specific sealants. Do NOT get anything from Home Depot/Lowes and apply it to the PUP. None of those products are meant to deal with the vibrations encountered with a travelling vehicle.

3) While it is pretty flat where he is going, one of the best things for adding stability to the PUP is a BAL Light Trailer Leveler. Once you see it here to see what I am talking about, you apply some lifting pressure to cradle the tire. It is locked in place.
At some point in the future, he WILL camp somewhere where he needs to level side-to-side and this thing will really shine. For the "high" side tire, BAL also makes one for the tire that stays on the ground here. I wish I had one of these and will probably get one yet.
As opnspaces noted, there are techniques for using just the plastic wedges to do the same. This effectively creates a cradle and works the same.
Be sure to use the four corner stabilizers. Chances are those are BAL stabilizers and have an "upgrade" for them. They are sand pads. I believe they are not standard but most all of the PUPs I've seen have them included and are most useful. I would definitely use something like that in the location you're going, to distribute the weight and keep them from digging into the ground and rendering themselves useless.
After I changed my springs to leaf over, I gained about 6" but my stabilizers were almost out of reach on flat ground and definitely useless wherever the ground is decently sloped, so I made the following. They work better than I expected.


4) It is possible as this is a relatively small roof with hopefully no air conditioner. Personally, I wouldn't do it but it depends totally on the quality of the drill. I burned out the gears on a lesser drill. I now use a 19.2v Craftsman with heavy duty gears and a hammer drill feature (do NOT use the hammer setting on the roof mechanism!). I use it to raise/lower the roof, deploy the stabilizers, raise/lower the modified tongue jack and the hardest job of all, raising and lowering the BAL jack mentioned above. This task far outstrips the force needed to raise/lower my 14' roof. And it is really helpful using the secondary handle to manage the force. I went to the store and bought two deep sockets: one to match the outer diameter of the roof crank that fits into the crank, and the other strictly to run the BAL leveler (much larger size). I used my Dremel to cut a slot across the end of the socket so that it matched the design of the roof crank and life has been grand ever since. I did add an 8" socket extension to make it a little easier on my hands for working space.

Now, your second set of questions:

1) You pretty much nailed the functional differences. Other differences are mostly aesthetics, such as gray and silver-tone finishes inside and out. Diamond plate on the front was used on other product lines of Fleetwood's. They put it on the front of my 2006 highwall PUP.

2) Are you talking about the lift posts at the (approximately) four corners of the PUP that support the roof? I wasn't aware that Fleetwood had stainless steel lift posts. I haven't found any SS anywhere in my PUP with the exception of the lift cables. Everything else is plated or galvanized. I was surprised to learn that the exterior skin on my '06 was actually textured galvanized steel and not aluminum as I had seen used elsewhere and on my first PUP. Sure enough, it is a ferrous metal as a magnet sticks right to it. Which is handy for some future mods I have in mind.
Regardless, I would not expect to find any other notable upgrades to the off-road models in construction. But I am neither an engineer nor former Fleetwood employee. Take it with a grain of salt.

Good luck and let us know what other questions you have.

lfloom wrote:
If it has a bag awning, you might want to bungy it down - or the wind with pick it up and drop it down the whole ****ed night.

I put three pieces of 2"x4" industrial Velcro (available at Home Depot/Lowes) between the awning bag and the roof to stop the flapping. They've been holding great for six years now. I don't have to undo anything either to use, or not use, the awning.

Thank you lfloom and opnspaces for the good info. Nothing like experience to inform a situation.
Thank you

1) What is different on the Fleetwood/Coleman Element 'off road' models vs standard PUP's? Larger tires, spring over axle & diamond plate on front of coarse. Previous owner supposedly put on beefier springs. (if anyone has a +/- 2007 Cobalt, and could post a picture of OEM leaf springs... cool. :)

2) Are SS raise/lower channels (or cables) stronger in some way? Heavier duty frame? Sturdier/better hardware though out trailer by chance?

Thank you all for the invaluable experienced info!!

I almost forgot, you have to put the awning away if it's going to be windy or it will get damaged\destroyed. If you don't the bag down during high winds it will get blown up onto the roof with a big thump and then blown back off the roof with another big thunk. Yep been there done that, now I just take the entire awning and bag off the trailer and set it on the ground.

1) The roof will be fine, people have reported much higher winds than that with no ill effects. He might want to invest in a set of high wind popup gizmos to help keep it cool in the desert sun. popup gizmos

2) I would say use Dicor self leveling caulk along the edge of the rails. But put a long strip of 2 inch wide masking tape on the roof parallel to the rail leaving a small gap for the caulk the stick to the roof. Caulk it, let it set for a minute or two, then peel up the tape for a clean caulk line. (available at RV store or camping world online.)

3)you have to chock the tires tightly. Since you're in the desert, to level it dig a small hole under the high side tire then pull the trailer forward until the tire drops into the hole. On the other side of the trailer put a tire block in front of the tire and a block behind the tire. Now have someone put the tow vehicle in gear and pull forward a few inches until the tire climbs the block a little bit. They then stop with their foot mashed on the brakes. You kick the back block up tight against the tire and then get out of the way. The driver then releases the brakes and lets the trailer roll back and settle in the valley between the chocks.

4)Yes, and yes. Stop and finish with a hand crank. Coleman went out of business a few years ago and you don't want to have to go looking for repair parts. Depending on the crank type there are specialty adapters on Amazon or ebay.

I have camped in a PUP in much higher winds than that. Do not put out the awning, and you should be fine. If it has a bag awning, you might want to bungy it down - or the wind with pick it up and drop it down the whole ****ed night.

As far as stability, not much is going to help. Remember the stabilizers are just that- make sure you do not put too much weight on them.

I had two Colemans: a 2000 and a 2004 - never had a leaking problem.