Leaking Marker Lights
I've been working two RV projects side by side, restoring an old 1953 Angelus Park Model trailer and my 1987 11' Alpine Western Wilderness Camper. With all the overtime I work (average Monday-Friday = 55 hours) it's hard to find time for the projects.
I bought the camper for $1200 last winter, hauled it home and put it in my big garage. I replaced all the roof vents (except fridge) including the escape hatch. I removed some windows and reset them with new butyl tape, and went through several tubes of Sikaflex caulk, carefully sealing everything. I used self leveling on the roof and generous amounts of Rustoleum white paint on faded parts.
I had plumbing issues, the old gray 1/2 inch plastic stuff had some leaks that happily I was able to repair quite easily with "sharkbite" fittings. I had to rewire the camper plug to truck with a new pigtail, and I upgraded the charge line from the truck to the camper with a much heavier gauge wire than the factory truck harness provided.
(I've shared some of these pictures in other post)
So I finally rolled my camper out of the garage this weekend, even though I had no plans to use it just yet, and we had some torrential rain come through. Yikes, I found water inside my camper in two places, both near side marker lights, and both those areas show water damage from leaks left unfixed.
The image above is on the inside of my camper, the marker lights have housings I have removed for inspection. Water was weeping in and dripping off the wires, not from above, but from the light fixture.
Above is what all the running lights look like on my old camper. And below is what I have ordered to replace them with.
So today I ordered all new LED marker lights for my camper, I'm going to remove all 14 of them and fix that problem before I take it on the road. I ordered what appears to be a real close match to the original equipment.
The old camper has quite a bit of d-lamination of the fiberglass outer skin, seen in the picture below (hey, it's a $1200 camper).
Does any one know of a way to find the the aluminum framing behind the skin? I'd like to rivet the skin back to the frame where it's bulging out, but my basic stud finder doesn't work on this aluminum framing. My stud finder in 25 years old with just red and green lights. Is there something newer these days that might work better?
Thanks for looking, Hans
I bought the camper for $1200 last winter, hauled it home and put it in my big garage. I replaced all the roof vents (except fridge) including the escape hatch. I removed some windows and reset them with new butyl tape, and went through several tubes of Sikaflex caulk, carefully sealing everything. I used self leveling on the roof and generous amounts of Rustoleum white paint on faded parts.
I had plumbing issues, the old gray 1/2 inch plastic stuff had some leaks that happily I was able to repair quite easily with "sharkbite" fittings. I had to rewire the camper plug to truck with a new pigtail, and I upgraded the charge line from the truck to the camper with a much heavier gauge wire than the factory truck harness provided.
(I've shared some of these pictures in other post)
So I finally rolled my camper out of the garage this weekend, even though I had no plans to use it just yet, and we had some torrential rain come through. Yikes, I found water inside my camper in two places, both near side marker lights, and both those areas show water damage from leaks left unfixed.
The image above is on the inside of my camper, the marker lights have housings I have removed for inspection. Water was weeping in and dripping off the wires, not from above, but from the light fixture.
Above is what all the running lights look like on my old camper. And below is what I have ordered to replace them with.
So today I ordered all new LED marker lights for my camper, I'm going to remove all 14 of them and fix that problem before I take it on the road. I ordered what appears to be a real close match to the original equipment.
The old camper has quite a bit of d-lamination of the fiberglass outer skin, seen in the picture below (hey, it's a $1200 camper).
Does any one know of a way to find the the aluminum framing behind the skin? I'd like to rivet the skin back to the frame where it's bulging out, but my basic stud finder doesn't work on this aluminum framing. My stud finder in 25 years old with just red and green lights. Is there something newer these days that might work better?
Thanks for looking, Hans
