Sealing Maintenance

dlnc wrote:
We have a diesel pusher with full body and need to do some maintenance....with that I have a few questions;

For the front and rear caps, should I peel off the old tape first or can I just tape over the current tape joint.

Since my coach has full body paint, what is the best sealant to use on the sides where the old sealant is cracking. I cannot use white with the body paint. I am also concerned with the sealant sagging since it will be applied to the exterior vertical surfaces.

Im thinking I may need to find some color sealant to blend in with the body paint.

First off,
There's quite a few different kinds of sealant/caulkings in the RV world. There are some for sealing around vents, front and rear cap adjoinments, roof-to-gutter seams and more. Some have properties like "self leveling". What that means is, when you apply it on something like a 14" x 14" roof vent, it will "flow" for a very short period of time and level out but, not run.

Dicor is one of those self leveling sealants and, is ONLY for horizontal surfaces. Do not use it on anything that begins to turn vertical, it will run. As for "tape" well, I'm not a fan of it, never have been. When it comes time for me to re-seal vents, cap seams and more, I use my heat gun and soften the original seams, scrape them off, wipe things down with alcohol and, then lay large beads of Dicor in whatever pattern that seems appropriate for the application. Sometimes I zig-zag back and forth for a wider bead, sometimes I do a "weld" bead. That's where I move an inch forward, then come back a half inch while still laying material, then move forward, back a half, move forward etc. etc. etc. That's when I want a really thick bead.

But, again, there's various caulks/sealants out there in the RV world. Cruise on down to your local RV supplies and check out all of them. Sikaflex is a top brand too for many of these.
Scott