Cannot find source of water leak on slide

JBarca wrote:

Wes Tausend wrote:
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This turned out to be a likely key to the leak. I noticed that sighting down the rain gutter reveals that very moderate jack pressure immediately "swoops" the shallow rain gutter (actually the whole camper roof).

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Anyway, when the slide is in, and the jacks are barely down, rain then gathers towards the center of the roof, spills over the side, overpowers the useless token rain gutter, and runs directly across the joint and seal that is supposed to seal the slide roof when closed (if that makes sense). I'm not sure how the rain is ultimately getting in, but there is plenty of it available in the directed white-water stream, that is inadvertently created.

Now this poses an interesting situation. I will bet that all travel trailers suffer from the slight swoop or sag when the jacks prop up the ends of the frames.

Wes,

Do you have a picture of how your slide system is built? If you have fiberglass walls, I have seen some made where the slide flange has a seal bulb that presses to the side wall of the camper. If the wall has enough bow in it, the slide may not seal and water running down from the roof "might" enter.

Mine is made different. 1st I have aluminum sides. 2nd my slide has a trailer frame aluminum flange that rests inward of the camper. Then in that trailer framework, the actual slide flange seals however the entire slide flange is in-board of the camper side. There is also a 2nd semi useless gutter above the slide, the one above the slide which I added gutter extensions to. This setup helps from water flowing down the wall or blowing down the wall of the camper under tow to helps deflect off water before it ever reaches the seal. See here


How is yours made?

Thanks for responding, John. I actually had to go look again. I don't have pictures.
I couldn't remember if the bulb seal was on the wall or slide. :R

The TT is Filon, often called fiberglass. My side flange, and seal, is pretty much identical to yours, except my flange, and bulb, rests directly against the smooth main camper sidewall when in. The wall always remains largely straight side-to-side with the seal, but there is an overall up/down center sag of about 3/4 inch when the jacks are lifting the ends of the TT.

The differentiation of vertical sag is probably only about 3/8 inch, and shouldn't leave an unusual opening for water. But it is getting in there somehow. Maybe I will close the slide against some paper strips and see if it is looser in some areas more than others. I am considering an additional gutter above the seal, but I sure would like to find the exact path the leak takes.

The leak is uncritical in that it does not leak with the slide out, nor if the TT is not level with it in. One catch-22 here is that I like to level it in the street in order to run the fridge overnight, but the slide must be in while parked out there.

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I think I have learned enough about Eternabond the hard way to do a better job in the future. An important point is that it is much easier with two people, if any length is to be laid down. That and I surmise one half the release paper at a time, like you said. It is true that the gum, on a long piece, would probably stretch without the vinyl backer attached.

Thanks again, John.

Wes
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