Has anyone glassed the front / rear end cap seams??

People who reply to this topic and warn about using fiberglass the way I have done, do not understand how motor homes are produced.

Nearly every motor home produced has fiberglass walls. As far as I know, every late model Fleetwood motor home had fiberglass walls.

The fiberglass joints that I installed on my Fleetwood Tioga, have never cracked. Been in heavy use for six years too!

George

Tom N wrote:

ccxnola wrote:
Tom,
I agree that is what we have been told by the RV makers, but...is it because it is easier and cheaper to do it that way?? I know there are many very good fiberglass boat hulls that take a beating in the ocean - and they are one-piece hulls, not a bunch of panels stuck together. Is there an engineer among us for some enlightenment??

The difference between a fiberglass boat and an RV is that the fiberglass on an RV is mounted to a steel or aluminum frame. The steel frame and the fiberglass panels have to work together. Lock the fiberglass in one piece and something has to give. It isn't going to be the frame.

-Tom

Fiberglass boats have wood stringers, and sometimes a wood core. My coach has a fiberglass front cap and rear cap, riveted to aluminum frame and to aluminum side panels. Everything is sealed and solid. The riveted seams between the fiberglass and the aluminum do not give. I have yet to hear of a Revcon that has ever had a leaking seam.

I would suggest that fiberglass is plenty flexible to absorb movement from going down the road. If it was a hard 90 degree bend, then there would be a stress point, but the corners on most coaches have a radius, which dissipates the stress over a larger area.

ccxnola wrote:
Tom,
I agree that is what we have been told by the RV makers, but...is it because it is easier and cheaper to do it that way?? I know there are many very good fibrelass boat hulls that take a beating in the ocean - and they are one-piece hulls, not a bunch of panels stuck together. Is there an engineer among us for some enlightenment??

The difference between a fiberglass boat and an RV is that the fiberglass on an RV is mounted to a steel or aluminum frame. The steel frame and the fiberglass panels have to work together. Lock the fiberglass in one piece and something has to give. It isn't going to be the frame.

-Tom

I am not very mechanically inclined so I am not sure we will be speaking of the same thing. We came to Tiffin's in Red Bay to have some service done. Up until a few years ago the rail caps were made of fiberglass. It was discovered that the fiberglass developed tiny cracks that turned into cracks that leaked. Tiffin is now using aluminum and is replacing the fiberglass rails at no cost to the customer.

Hi Everybody!

I used to be known as Tioga-George when I wrote the Adventures of Tioga and George blog.

I am the guy who had my RV's walls fiberglassed together. First I removed all of those ugly aluminum extrusion corners that Fleetwood installed on my MsTioga RV. Then, Jose the fiberglass guy fiberglassed each wall to the adjacent wall. By fiberglassing all of the walls together with these fiberglass corners, and doing the same fiberglass layup on the roof, my RV, in effect, became one big fiberglass part. In other words, the roof, the four walls, the cabover: are all one piece.

The fiberglass layup is made up of three layers. This is the same layup (thickness) that is used to build a fiberglass fishing boat. Amazingly strong! And easily repaired in case of an accident.

Since I used Jose the Fiberglass guy in 2007, located in the City of Constitutcion in Baja California del Sur, I began living in the Pueblo of Santillan, a suburb of Tequisquiapan, Queretaro, Mexico. About a kilometer from where I am living in Santillan, is Panchito's Body shop. Jose the Fiberglass Guy was an amazingly talented master of fiberglass.

However, Panchito and his father Don Pancho, are even more talented with fiberglass than Jose. Also, Jose could not spray paint. While Panchito is a fabulously talented painter and mechanic.

If you are considering repairing your fiberglass RV, perhaps doing what I did, including converting your rubber roof on your RV to fiberglass, i suggest you come down to the Pueblo of Santillan and do what I did. Let Panchito and Don Pancho do their magic on your RV.

You will be soooooo happy that you did!

Bye for now,
George

Gjac wrote:

tonyandkaren wrote:
Tioga George had all of the seams on his class C fiberglassed in Mexico in 2007. http://blog.vagabonders-supreme.net/search?q=fiberglass It looks like it's held up very well.

Tony what George had done in Mexico was actually layup a one piece roof to cover his old roof. This one piece roof with no seams was a continuous laminate and weighed 180 lbs. What the OP wants is to remove his Eternabond and cover just his seams with fiberglass.

George did cover his roof but if you read the earlier posts you'll see that he also had all of the seams on his motorhome body covered with fiberglass. Many readers predicted that the seams would crack but apparently that has not happened.

Ok, to any naysayer that thinks there is too much flex, take a good look at an Ungers from the late 60s, early 70s. They were hand laid up fiberglass in on complete piece. There are no seems anywhere in the shell. They built them upside down. The only seems where the floor met the side walls up underneath the coach. The glass did hold up, as I have seen a few somewhat recently.

Now having said that, I can't figure out why you would do that to a Rexhall. The roof cap overlaps the 2 end caps and the side walls, so I can't figure out why it would ever leak anyway. Its one of the very few coaches that are built that way,

I have a similar thing with my rig, across the back there is a fiberglass quarter round panel from the roof to a flat filon panel, just below the escape window is a seam, covered by a "C" channel and another filon panel down to the bottom of the rig. The two filon panels are on an angle, the top piece goes out slightly from wher it meets the round top piece and the bottom goes back in to the bottom. I want to remove the "C" channel and glass over the two filon pieces and then reinstall the "C" channel. I was thinking of using a six inch wide matt, three inches on each side of the seam and two four inch matts overlapping over the seam. Using fiberglass matt rather than cloth would be two or three times a thick as the filon and yet hardly noticeable.

A mobil repair guy said to much flex but the whole frame is welded steel and seems pretty strong. I guess the side to side motion would cause some flex but right now the seam is taped and looks like shoot. So how much flex is there on the rear cap and would a good glass job help seal the seam?

After reading all of the posts and information, I may rethink the project so as to actually sand down the joint seam on both the front & back - both sides and the top and then bond a complete fibreglass replacement across the seam - to make a single composite. I'm just wondering - based on the comment regarding thin vs thick fibreglass - if the bonded joint might fail in the flexing or if the roof may develop cracks and leaks elsewhere. I guess I'll need to get to a fibreglass shop to assesss the practicality - before I head to the new paint job!

tonyandkaren wrote:
Tioga George had all of the seams on his class C fiberglassed in Mexico in 2007. http://blog.vagabonders-supreme.net/search?q=fiberglass It looks like it's held up very well.

Tony what George had done in Mexico was actually layup a one piece roof to cover his old roof. This one piece roof with no seams was a continuous laminate and weighed 180 lbs. What the OP wants is to remove his Eternabond and cover just his seams with fiberglass.