Solvent for roof adhesive

I'm not one to walk around on my roof, discovered the soft spot just by placing my hands on it. Today I reinstall the rubber roof. Keeping my fingers crossed everything goes well. I did notice that the factory ran some staples though the top of the rubber roof, under where the trim goes. Most of the stapling was done after it folded down over the back wall. Why anyone would staple the top and possibly allow a water entry point is beyond me? My plan is to run a strip of eternabond across the rear edge of the roof and cover any staple holes. Then install the trim and Dicor it.

While I agree with you 100% about 'harsh' solvents which was the question, what to use that was safe, and no one was suggesting other wise. I also agree, especially when Im up there, about walking on the roof is dumb. But the occasion does arise at some point sooner or later, you will or someone will need to.

Looked at the first picture shellbackcva59, picking that stuff off couldnt have been a lot of fun. Glad you got it. Oh after glueing the longer you can wait to get back on the roof the better. It takes several days to really cure, so will easily smush and slide. "No big ugly boots" :), Good luck

AnEv942 wrote:
Really, you are suggesting leave the chips on there, stuck on the rubber? Re-gluing down with those chips between rubber and new roof would at best look like crap,

You know what else looks bad? A leaking roof from deterioration because a harsh solvent was used. Walking on the roof is a dumb thing to do anyway.

Spoke to Dicor and they had nothing to offer as far as a solvent that would work. Yesterday I spent a couple hours carefully scraping the laminates of OBS off of the rubber roof. Once that was done I had the remaining glue to deal with. Another tedious process of rubbing my fingers over the glue and forming little balls which I was able to pick off. All in all it wasn't that big a deal, just time consuming. The plywood sub roof repair is completed, rubber roofing is clean and ready to be reinstalled. Have a gallon of the Dicor adhesive and my brother coming by tomorrow to give me a hand with it. Last step to reinstall the trim and do the caulking. About a year ago I noticed a section of the caulking wasn't bonding to the roof material. At that time I pulled the loose stuff of and recaulked with Dicor. Since that time I imagine the rest of the seams original caulk also failed, giving me the problem I am now dealing with. In hind-site, I should have redone the whole seam and not just a section of it. Would have saved me all this headache. Of course if it was done properly at the factory, I would still be a happy camper. My advise to all, is to inspect all caulk seams physically, and not just by eye site. Take a putty knife and make sure the caulk in binding to both surfaces.

I used Dicor 901BA when I replaced our roof, It is water based, (water borne more accurate) more of emulsion. Dried its like rubber cement, working with it was also similar to using cement. I have half a gallon left-not any real info on it but commercial package. Slop on side of can is still semi soft and sticky-water wont dissolve it. I could see it losing its bond on wood fibers, if you could get it wet enough to break down the wood. Doesnt sound like fun...
Im only judging by when I removed ours, the membrane was for the most part still adhered, so seperating it stretched not uniformly in its layers. Left it puckered. Will the pieces pull off?

At this point the camper is inside with the roof opened up and drying out. Where there was moisture on the roof OBX, the rubber roof came off clean. The area where the chips are, was pulled back to make sure I got to all the bad stuff. The rubber roofing material doesn't like any petroleum based product, so I'm thinking it might be water based glue. Hence the reason the rubber came up clean on the wet areas. I'm waiting for the roofing adhesive to arrive and see what it mentions for clean up. Other than the chips on the roofing, the material is in excellent condition. It's a 2 year old camper. Hoping to have repairs made and ready to reinstall the rubber roofing by the weekend. If it stretches out, lay flat and glues down well, I don't see why it shouldn't hold up. If a problem develops on the install, I'll have to punt and do a complete replacement. When getting into this job, the caulking still had excellent adhesion to the metal trim, but the caulking pulled clean from the rubber roof at many places. Either a poor quality caulk was used or the rubber roofing wasn't clean when the caulk was applied. PS The local RV shop actually recommended just leaving the chips in place and regluing the material down. He didn't see my picture though, so he might have realized how much was stuck to the material.

Really, you are suggesting leave the chips on there, stuck on the rubber? Re-gluing down with those chips between rubber and new roof would at best look like crap, cant see how you could walk on it without eventually puncturing, let alone getting it to bond. Any appurtenance near like vent etc would be difficult to seal.

Myself I wouldn't trust the membrane after pulling up, whole point of this was to fix water damage, thats just me. If able to clean enough and comfortable thats membranes undamaged I assumed OP was regluing down. Dont know where he is on this project.. no update on either of the threads its in..

If it were me, Id leave it alone. Id be concerned that removing that will do more harm than good.

What I have had the best results with is Klean Strip Industrial Maintenance Coating Thinner which I found for sale on Amazon. You may be able to find it locally - Home Depot used to sell it.

Those wood chips look like they came from OSB instead of Plywood. I've heard that using petroleum based products can damage the rubber roof material.