The Before part 2. The duct tape was used to get it home from Oklahoma in January.
It is a 2006 5th wheel 32' bunkhouse.
Bad repair job from previous owner
They used close to an inch thick of buytl tape instead of Eternabond tape.
The insulation is in pretty good shape
The damage ๐
The roof
The worst of the front wall
The water was on the inside of the wall and must have puddled in the tyvek. The wood was still wet
You can only see the damage to the front of the trailer, the roof and sides about 2' back are bad too.
Enough work for one day, this trailer demo is harder than it looks on youtube But now that we are started we have to keep going.
We don't have a barn big enough to store the 5th wheel so it's under a tarp. It's not like the water wasn't already getting in anyway.
Any tips or help would be appreciated. We have had a hard time finding much good information and/or how to videos or websites on doing a massive rebuild like this one. If you know of any send the link!
It is a 2006 5th wheel 32' bunkhouse.
Bad repair job from previous owner
They used close to an inch thick of buytl tape instead of Eternabond tape.
The insulation is in pretty good shape
The damage ๐
The roof
The worst of the front wall
The water was on the inside of the wall and must have puddled in the tyvek. The wood was still wet
You can only see the damage to the front of the trailer, the roof and sides about 2' back are bad too.
Enough work for one day, this trailer demo is harder than it looks on youtube But now that we are started we have to keep going.
We don't have a barn big enough to store the 5th wheel so it's under a tarp. It's not like the water wasn't already getting in anyway.
Any tips or help would be appreciated. We have had a hard time finding much good information and/or how to videos or websites on doing a massive rebuild like this one. If you know of any send the link!
Sorry to have taken so long to get these new photos posted of the "finished" product. We got distracted with actual camping!!! It kind of felt like a miracle that the RV actually got put back together enough to actually camp in. There is still work to do until it is closer to perfect (mostly on the inside) but it has come such a long way!
The RV repair guy had to get the RV completely level and do a little more sanding but was then able to get the front cap back on nicely. Being out of level was our main problem with gettting the fiberglass front cap back in place.
Note to anyone trying this at home MAKE SURE YOUR RV IS TOTALLY LEVEL BEFORE STARTING!!!!
We thought it was good enough sitting basically level in the gravel driveway. THIS IS NOT OK when rebuilding! Leveling could have saved us zillions of hours of frustration and $$$ if we would have known this before starting. We may not have been able to fully fix the problem at our house because our only spot to work on the RV was a gravel drive. But it certainly would have been better.
The repair guy said they use floor jacks to jack up the RV all around in different spots to get it totally level BEFORE they start working on them. MAKE SURE AND DO THIS FOR YOURSELVES!
Overall it looks pretty good. Up close you can see there has been some work done to the RV but thats OK it works!
In case you are wondering the RV repair guy charged us about $600 to complete it and put it back together including putting the cap back on and hanging the interior cabinets over the bed.
We also had him pack the bearings, and put 4 brand new tires and replace the hubcaps and check the breaks on the trailer. Lastly he had a bugger of a time getting the gooseneck adapter off. It was welded on and the installers had cross threaded the bolt so it wasn't coming off easy. We had to pay for an hour of labor for that one. Worth it for us because we don't want to crawl in the bed of the truck to hitch every time. We really like a 5th wheel instead of a gooseneck. We will get the adapter retapped and sell it.
Total bill from the repair center for repairs and new tires etc $1166.92
The RV repair guy had to get the RV completely level and do a little more sanding but was then able to get the front cap back on nicely. Being out of level was our main problem with gettting the fiberglass front cap back in place.
Note to anyone trying this at home MAKE SURE YOUR RV IS TOTALLY LEVEL BEFORE STARTING!!!!
We thought it was good enough sitting basically level in the gravel driveway. THIS IS NOT OK when rebuilding! Leveling could have saved us zillions of hours of frustration and $$$ if we would have known this before starting. We may not have been able to fully fix the problem at our house because our only spot to work on the RV was a gravel drive. But it certainly would have been better.
The repair guy said they use floor jacks to jack up the RV all around in different spots to get it totally level BEFORE they start working on them. MAKE SURE AND DO THIS FOR YOURSELVES!
Overall it looks pretty good. Up close you can see there has been some work done to the RV but thats OK it works!
In case you are wondering the RV repair guy charged us about $600 to complete it and put it back together including putting the cap back on and hanging the interior cabinets over the bed.
We also had him pack the bearings, and put 4 brand new tires and replace the hubcaps and check the breaks on the trailer. Lastly he had a bugger of a time getting the gooseneck adapter off. It was welded on and the installers had cross threaded the bolt so it wasn't coming off easy. We had to pay for an hour of labor for that one. Worth it for us because we don't want to crawl in the bed of the truck to hitch every time. We really like a 5th wheel instead of a gooseneck. We will get the adapter retapped and sell it.
Total bill from the repair center for repairs and new tires etc $1166.92
Now the framing is sanded down just perfectly to match the original shape of the siding. Everything looked perfect so we were excited to get the fiberglass cap put on and get finished.
However...it didn't fit.
You can see from the photos that on the left side framing is showing on the right side it overlaps. No matter what we did it just would not sit properly. The angles just would not match up on both sides at the same time.
The RV repair guy had told us that if after we sanded the framing down if it still didn't fit it was because the RV was sitting unlevel.
We had the 5th wheel sitting as level as possible at our house. However we only have a gravel driveway. No cement no asphalt. Nothing it truly level here. We also do not have enough heavy duty large jacks that we could use to jack up the trailer to make it perfectly level. Lastly we have run out of patience on this project and with this final setback that is pretty much impossible for us to fix on our own we finally threw in the towel and decided to haul it to a professional RV repair shop.
However...it didn't fit.
You can see from the photos that on the left side framing is showing on the right side it overlaps. No matter what we did it just would not sit properly. The angles just would not match up on both sides at the same time.
The RV repair guy had told us that if after we sanded the framing down if it still didn't fit it was because the RV was sitting unlevel.
We had the 5th wheel sitting as level as possible at our house. However we only have a gravel driveway. No cement no asphalt. Nothing it truly level here. We also do not have enough heavy duty large jacks that we could use to jack up the trailer to make it perfectly level. Lastly we have run out of patience on this project and with this final setback that is pretty much impossible for us to fix on our own we finally threw in the towel and decided to haul it to a professional RV repair shop.
