Big caulking job; bad weather
Posted 04-03-2011 at 08:37 AM by idmtman
Tags bumper seal, caulking
Well, it was supposed to be sunny Friday so Thursday I removed the chrome trim on the rub rail and spent several hours cleaning off the old double-sided tape. Friday morning I unscrewed the rub rail back beyond the rounded section of the rear of the trailer to expose the area to be caulked. Well... it appears this "fix" had been done before; but not very well.
I removed all the old caulk and re-applied TremPro 636 and tooled it. Nice stuff but at 50 degrees it takes forever to cure so we tented the back of the trailer with visqueen to protect it from the inevitable rain.
After 24 hours the tenting started to come off from the wind, rain, snow and hail but the caulk had almost become tack free. Late Saturday, I was able to screw (new screws with Parbond on each hole) the rub rail back on. Unfortunately, the chrome trim will have to wait until it is 65 degrees as that is the requirement (according to the instructions) for a proper installation and I still need to clean up the rub rail of the tape residue as well. If the sun appears today, I can replace the caulk that was between the upper surface of the rub rail and the skin.
I am hopeful this will cure the minor leak in the rear compartment. If not, it would have to be either the window, which appears to be well sealed, or one of the seams up high. I am confident I will have the opportunity to experience more rain soon.
I take Sylvia to Spokane AS Tuesday for brakes, wheel bearings, and a new skylight. Just about ready for the cross-country trip coming up at the end of the month.
I removed all the old caulk and re-applied TremPro 636 and tooled it. Nice stuff but at 50 degrees it takes forever to cure so we tented the back of the trailer with visqueen to protect it from the inevitable rain.
After 24 hours the tenting started to come off from the wind, rain, snow and hail but the caulk had almost become tack free. Late Saturday, I was able to screw (new screws with Parbond on each hole) the rub rail back on. Unfortunately, the chrome trim will have to wait until it is 65 degrees as that is the requirement (according to the instructions) for a proper installation and I still need to clean up the rub rail of the tape residue as well. If the sun appears today, I can replace the caulk that was between the upper surface of the rub rail and the skin.
I am hopeful this will cure the minor leak in the rear compartment. If not, it would have to be either the window, which appears to be well sealed, or one of the seams up high. I am confident I will have the opportunity to experience more rain soon.
I take Sylvia to Spokane AS Tuesday for brakes, wheel bearings, and a new skylight. Just about ready for the cross-country trip coming up at the end of the month.
Total Comments 2
Comments
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Hi, you did your body to bumper sealing the correct way. I chose to just seal the top and bottom of my molding and seal it on each end near the frame. In other words, I sealed it without removing anything. In your case, I would be more concerned about the rear storage door leaking. My side mounted storage door didn't leak water into it, but cold air was coming into my bedroom from there, so I added another weather strip on the door it'self to seal it up better. Next trip will tell how well it works.Posted 04-04-2011 at 11:34 PM by ROBERTSUNRUS 
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Thanks for the suggestion. The rear storage door itself is where I began the process of elimination. I did some caulking around frame and also adjusted the latches. The fix above seems to have worked. We had about eight hours of hard, continuous rain Monday and everything was dry Tuesday morning as I was getting hitched up to take it to Spokane AS for some other work.Posted 04-06-2011 at 08:34 AM by idmtman
