under belly re-install

[pennstaterv]

happy saturday --

I am removing the underbelly of my 5er to do some work. All of the bolts holding it up are completely rusted and any effort to take them off results in snapping the heads....obviously not a problem for removing the cardboard junk, but just wondering if there are any alternatives to re-installing it. I don't really want to drill all new holes for new fasteners... was thinking maybe some screw clamps?

[Toolguy5]

There are drill point screws available. If you can't find them in a hardware store you should be able to buy on line.
I used them for years when I was working.

They actually have a little drill bit on the end. Then they are self tapping when they drill through.
Amazon Has them. Search drill point screws.

[Mesteve]

JN_B wrote:
i was also quite surprised at how little effort was put into the basement utilities..

Not true at all, all the effort was in how cheaply and fast the install could be completed. On second thought, maybe completed isn't the right word since most owners have to have something done to actually complete the work the factory should have done...

[PhilandJoyce]

Too bad someone loaded a "pop-up virus" onto it. Got to the second page of the album and, BAM, up comes the all-familiar "Your viewer needs upgrading! Click here immediately!"

[JN_B]

I was lucky enough that my screws didn't rust or snap off, but when I did reinstall them, I put a piece of aluminum strapping at the seams to prevent sagging. So far so good.

(i was also quite surprised at how little effort was put into the basement utilities)..

[0rion]

I have an issue now with one of my ducts in the nose of my 5er. The furthermost duct just has next to no flow coming out of it. It's only maybe 2' of duct work more than the next closest and the flow difference is night and day. They both exit into the basement and 1 turns and has a register in the step while the other turns up to the floor. I think a mouse or something has created a hole in that duct somewhere so I'll have to pull the bottom off to inspect it. My point I guess is a hole could be a real problem depending on what duct it's in. Fortunately I have a rear bedroom which gets tons of heat. 😄 I would still like to figure out what's going on with that one though because if the kids ever stay up there in the bunks during the winter they'd get pretty cold I would imagine.

[LarryJM]

0rion wrote:

LarryJM wrote:

Almot wrote:

LarryJM wrote:
... a system to prevent the material from sagging using a "no drill" system.

I understand aluminum angles holding the belly where it's sagging. But you still have to fasten those angles to the frame? If "no drill", then you have to use existing old holes.

You didn't look at all the pictures nor read the captions. The aluminum angles are held to the frame with "beam clamps" which require no drilling or use of holes. That whole underbelly redo did not require drilling A SINGLE ADDITIONAL HOLE in the frame. The existing holes where the original sheet metal screws were, were tapped to accept the 1/4x20 nylon bolts and even those didn't require a pilot drill hole since the sheet metal screw hole was just right for the 14x20 tap.

Larry

Looks like a fantastic job you did there. So all of your ducts and wiring for the most part were just hanging down unsecured from the floor when you started? That's what I got from your first picture. I need to pull my underbelly and give it a look I guess because that would kinda bother me.

Yes nothing was secured to the floor and a real achilles heal was how the water lines crossed from one side of the trailer to the other that basically would make it IMPOSSIBLE to use the "blow out air method" to winterize". You can see one picture where the low point drains were plumbed into that crossover and because the length of pipe coming down from the floor made the union for the low point drains higher than the line going to the other side of the trailer and up to the faucets in the kitchen. This basically formed a "TRAP" that would prevent either draining like 6' of line or preventing you from blowing out that section unless you applied air pressure to the kitchen faucets and opened the low point drains to remove that water. This is one of the reasons, I'm not keen on winterizing only using air because one can't be sure of how effective that method is based on their particular trailer plumbing configuration. I secured all my duct work along with the water lines and electric bundles to the floor which also put them in the warmest instead of the coldest area of the underbelly. I also replumbed the FW drain tank that originally ran to the front of the trailer away from any ducts to the side closer to where the duct work was.

The one thing you did that I would've done a little different I think is the way you hung your duct under there. I would put some foam around that strap so there was less chance it would rub through the duct. That duct is pretty thin stuff and the driving and vibrations I think might eventually rub that through right there.

Great observation and I agree and never considered that, but you have a very valid point. However, the only downside if it did wear a hole would be a warmer underbelly area along with some loss of heating.


Other than that 1 little thing the rest of it looks great. How many hours did you have in that do you think? Looks like quite a bit when you factor in the painting and everything. Again....I'm impressed with the whole job.

Thank you for your kind words and to be honest I really didn't keep track time wise, but I sort of did it in stages over like a month to 6 weeks and a WAG would be about 20hrs of actual work, but a whole lot of time was "NOODLING WHAT TO DO NEXT AND HOW" along with multiple trips to like Lowe's/HD for parts and experimenting with various ways to skin that squirrely cat I found when I opened things up. I had to order the nylon bolts, along with nylon nuts and nylon fender washers only to find out I had to order more so just that was like 10days between shipments so there is 20days by itself. I also had to experiment quite a bit in figuring out how to run the sectionalized underbelly over the axles since I had to basically split a panel in half and then use some heavy vinyl plastic to join the two because the aluminum angles would not fit if already on the panel nor the panel fit over the axles since the width there was like 6" narrower than the rest of the underbelly because of the axle mounts.

Larry

[0rion]

LarryJM wrote:

Almot wrote:

LarryJM wrote:
... a system to prevent the material from sagging using a "no drill" system.

I understand aluminum angles holding the belly where it's sagging. But you still have to fasten those angles to the frame? If "no drill", then you have to use existing old holes.

You didn't look at all the pictures nor read the captions. The aluminum angles are held to the frame with "beam clamps" which require no drilling or use of holes. That whole underbelly redo did not require drilling A SINGLE ADDITIONAL HOLE in the frame. The existing holes where the original sheet metal screws were, were tapped to accept the 1/4x20 nylon bolts and even those didn't require a pilot drill hole since the sheet metal screw hole was just right for the 14x20 tap.

Larry

Looks like a fantastic job you did there. So all of your ducts and wiring for the most part were just hanging down unsecured from the floor when you started? That's what I got from your first picture. I need to pull my underbelly and give it a look I guess because that would kinda bother me. The one thing you did that I would've done a little different I think is the way you hung your duct under there. I would put some foam around that strap so there was less chance it would rub through the duct. That duct is pretty thin stuff and the driving and vibrations I think might eventually rub that through right there. Other than that 1 little thing the rest of it looks great. How many hours did you have in that do you think? Looks like quite a bit when you factor in the painting and everything. Again....I'm impressed with the whole job.

[LarryJM]

Almot wrote:

LarryJM wrote:
... a system to prevent the material from sagging using a "no drill" system.

I understand aluminum angles holding the belly where it's sagging. But you still have to fasten those angles to the frame? If "no drill", then you have to use existing old holes.

You didn't look at all the pictures nor read the captions. The aluminum angles are held to the frame with "beam clamps" which require no drilling or use of holes. That whole underbelly redo did not require drilling A SINGLE ADDITIONAL HOLE in the frame. The existing holes where the original sheet metal screws were, were tapped to accept the 1/4x20 nylon bolts and even those didn't require a pilot drill hole since the sheet metal screw hole was just right for the 14x20 tap.

Larry

[Almot]

LarryJM wrote:
... a system to prevent the material from sagging using a "no drill" system.

I understand aluminum angles holding the belly where it's sagging. But you still have to fasten those angles to the frame? If "no drill", then you have to use existing old holes.

[RollandB]

Nice work, LarryJM! I really like the way you sectionalized your panels.

[pennstaterv]

LarryJM wrote:
I completely re did my underbelly and designed some things to reinstall and hold the material with a combination of nylon fasteners using the existing sheet metal screw locations along with a system to prevent the material from sagging using a "no drill" system. All my work is in THIS ALBUM with detailed descriptions in the picture captions.

Larry

Thanks for all the suggestions --- all good advice. especially like the photo album Larry, thanks.... I always thought of getting under there to add some insulation and re-route some stuff

[LarryJM]

I completely re did my underbelly and designed some things to reinstall and hold the material with a combination of nylon fasteners using the existing sheet metal screw locations along with a system to prevent the material from sagging using a "no drill" system. All my work is in THIS ALBUM with detailed descriptions in the picture captions.

Larry

[myredracer]

Mechanically fastening is the way to go. I've thought about how I would do this some day and what I would do is use a long strip of sheet aluminum maybe 2-3" wide and pop rivet the first sheet to the strip along with washers (so that screw heads won't stick out too far). Then the overlapping sheet would be screwed down with SS self-tapping screws. Maybe you can re-use whatever is behind the existing screws to screw into again. Then I'd finish that off with Scrim Shield or Gorilla tape to keep moisture out and to make the underbelly a little more airtight. Penetrations for pipes, tank valve cables,etc. can be sealed off with landscape foam which is a black/grey color.

[Rocky_3]

I think I would use self tapping screw/bolts. They have a hex head just like a bolt and a self tapping bit end. If you get them in the same location it would simply drill out the rusted bolt and install in the same hole. They install fairly easily with a cordless drill.