Can you help? Water in belly pan question

[Eddy]

I noticed this question on the WBCCI RV Maintenance forum and wondered if anyone here could help answer this question?

WBCCI Forum -


Thank you!

[Tim A.]

I assume the question is for an Airstream trailer, so I will give the response I have given before. As far as I can tell, the belly pan is not intended to be water tight. Good thing, too, otherwise a leak inside the trailer would make a swimming (maybe only wading) pool out of the belly pan. Due to the pan's construction, it has low spots between rivets and such. In each low spot, carefully drill one or two 1/8 inch holes just through the outermost aluminum sheet. Do not drill far into the belly pan - you can damage a number of items that way. Anyway, the little holes allow any water which has accumulated to drip out. The holes are not large enough to let much water in.

[CanoeStream]

I agree with Tim. Moisture from plumbing, leaks, gaps at the side-belly junction*, and road spray are all common. They are potentially more damaging if the belly pan didn't allow it to escape.

* I don't know much about mohos in general but a surprising number of Airstream trailers are designed with the belly pan lapped outside of the side walls under the rubrail trim. This is sealed with either caulking or two sided foam tape (in my '74 Argosy) -- both prone to breakdown and requiring maintenance as trailers age.

[crestonrv]

not normal for water to collect in bellypan and has no manufacturers supplied drains for same = determine source and fix it, will probably have to pull pan to accomplish this.

[LI Pets]

After removing and cleaning up belly pans, banana skins I drilled a few weep holes in the pans to make sure they drained.

We had a rain storm and they work like a charm!

[Tim A.]

crestonrv: not normal for water to collect in bellypan and has no manufacturers supplied drains for same = determine source and fix it, will probably have to pull pan to accomplish this.

As Canoestream mentioned, roadspray, etc. can put water in the belly pan. We had it happen with our Bambi and I found a nice spot at the wheelwell which probably was the entry point. The good thing about having the little weep holes is that you can see if water drips out of them during dry periods and that lets you know there is some source in the trailer.