Massive leaks and destruction

[xrvr]

Wow, you need to be commended for your hard work.

[israndy]

Originally Posted by daa1111

This is the outside cap over the driver’s seat between the cab and the side of the RV where the most water was coming in on the driver’s side. You can see how weeny the caulk is and how it isn’t completely sealed.


This is how I redid it. Lot’s on the RV itself, lots on the underside of the cap. So we end up with caulk oozing out everywhere after it is screwed on. It’s not going to leak. Take note Airstream: it’s not that hard.

Very impressive, I fear I am going to be following you. The ceiling leaks have trashed at least one section of luan and both the drive and passenger sides of the cab have gotten water in the same area as you. The luan is separating from the fiberglass just outside the cup holders on the two walls. The fridge vents are also letting the fiberglass delaminate. I am thinking of doing one of those resin repairs where you mix and inject and compress until the resin drys. This will encapsulate the affected wood so no rot should propagate to other areas.

Once It's back to flat I will do the caulk loading of the cap over the seam between front and side pieces. I drilled out the rivets on the piece on my RV and covered it with duct tape. I was thinking I should keep up the original attachments and learn to rivet. Not familiar with even how to judge if you can re-rivet the areas removed. I have seen pop rivet guns at the big box stores. Why did you choose to screw the sides back on instead?

-Randy

[65Streamer]

Again, WOW. Thanks for the inspiration. I'm glad you keep posting. Very interesting the way you've tackled this project.
It puts the repairs I am doing on my 1965 Airstream trailer in perspective. I'm so glad I have an aluminum body and "only" a rotten floor, failed appliances, bad plumbing, questionable electrical and sagged out axles.
I hope others who are considering purchasing a motorhome or trailer of this type of construction will see your posts before buying. You are probably saving someone from great hardship and potential health and safety issues.
I guess they all need work. At least you'll know this unit inside and out when your done. Literally!
We feel your pain and applaud your accomplishments.
Thank you for posting!

[daa1111]

Hi Randy,

You have rivets holding this piece of molding? Mine was screwed on. Do you know if the rivets were original by Airstream, or did someone else possibly do it? Because checking the caulk under this critical piece seems to me to be part of periodic maintenance and so probably shouldn't be riveted. It should be easily removable by stainless screws.

Anyway, you have nothing to gain by using rivets. And in my opinion, they're more leak prone than screws. If they ever loosen up, you can't just tighten them; you have to replace them. And after replacing them once or twice, the holes will become larger and larger, and so you may have to drill new holes and patch the old ones. Or use larger rivets. Also, a normal pop-rivet, which is what you're talking about, has a hole right down the center which then needs to be caulked from the outside. Not the best way to go--in my opinion.

Rivets are for something that normally isn't meant to be taken apart.

About injecting epoxy: unfortunately, my RV was way beyond that kind of a fix. The wood was completely saturated and falling apart in my fingers, even on the inside. But as fate would have it, the inside issues were behind interior furniture that I couldn't see until I moved it (and after I bought the RV). And when I unfastened the outside fiberglass skin, large pieces of rotten wood just fell out. Even some of the Styrofoam fell apart in my fingers. I was just thankful to see aluminum framing instead of wood.

Strange thing about the website you have a link to is that they don't talk about surfaces being wet or how dry they need to be (at least I couldn't find it). Most epoxies won't stick to wet surfaces, but there are some epoxies that will, though they're pretty expensive. I can't tell if theirs will. You can find this kind of epoxy at marine suppliers for boats. I hope I'm not telling you anything you already know, but you just need to make sure you get an epoxy that is thin enough to go through the injection tubing. Epoxy won't hurt styrofoam, but most thinners/solvents will eat right through it. I'm thinking that denatured alchohol is safe on styrofoam, but I'm not sure about that. (I use alchohol as a thinner. So much safer and more pleasant to work with than most solvents.)

Anyway, I think that kind of fix is excellent and the right way to go for simple delamination. I wish I could have done it that way.

Probably most of the work will be in figuring out a way to press the fiberglass flat against the RV while the epoxy cures. And probably no need to buy expensive clamps that that website sells. Just wood and wedges would work. I wish you luck with it.

David

[israndy]

Thanks for the input. I see your point on screws. And I have no expertise on replacing rivets.

The rivets are original, the whole vehicle is riveted on the outside. The caps that cover the seams both between the front and side, and the back and side panels are then double-sided sticky taped and riveted before the full body paint. Then the outside is silicone caulked. It may be that they thought there was only the caulking needing maintenance everything else would hold. But all 4 caps in the 4 corners of my RV are missing rivets. My SkyDeck furniture is also missing rivets to the patio surround, even the awning rail that the surround is supported by is missing rivets at the front.



That is likely where all the leaking started. The rail got caught by a tree or just blew around in the airstream (pun intended). The leaks got the wood inside wet which swelled and popped the rivets lower down and more leaks. Fun! Can't wait until summer to fix the holes after the wood drys. In the mean time I have taped much of it off to prevent more leaks.

Looking at the early photos of my driving the RV from rainy Missouri to sunny California it looks like the swollen wood on the driver's seat area was not leaking yet. Something happened here and it's only been raining since maybe December.

-Randy

[imskedaddlin]

I commend you on your effort and workmanship.
You have inspired those who can, to do.
Great Job.
Jim

[Isuzusweet]

Originally Posted by daa1111

Hi all,

Time to update.

Below is what I spoke about in an earlier post. Anyone who knows anything about RVs knows that this bulging is a sure sign of delamination.

I didn’t know this at the time. The dealer knew this. Again, they waited for someone ignorant like me to take this RV off their hands.
By the way, that peeling dark red stripe: I found that that pulled off easily. So now, instead of that mess, it is an all gray stripe.


David -- still working

It's amazing what we miss when we go to purchase a vehicle costing thousands of dollars; but when your in the moment and there is so much to take in, especially with RV's and first time buyers, its best to take someone with no skin in the deal to have an objective view. I missed my whole sub floor debacle.

Oh well

With your next RV purchase you will be a pro and be able to detect anything.

Cheers
Tony

[daa1111]

Hi all,

Short update:

See the picture. Nothing to salvage here. But easy access to the propane tank on the right and transmission on the left. Luckily, the actual framing is in good condition. Just surface rust.

The way this is built from bottom to top is:

1) Very thin sheet metal that had been pushed into a slot that is part of the underside of the steel framing—essentially sealing it tight.
2) Wood (luan) on top of the sheet metal. I have no idea why this is here.
3) The steel framing along with foam insulation.
4) OSB subfloor.

I’m sure Airstream thought they were building some kind of floor structure here. But what they really built was a water tank with a wood lining.

When water gets into the floor (and it WILL get in), it can’t drain out. And so it’s absorbed into the wood right next to the sheet metal, constantly keeping the metal wet. Now we have a guaranteed, easy recipe for rot and rust.

Simple, simple solution (for original construction): keep the sheet metal. Absolutely get rid of the wood. Drill several small holes in the sheet metal to allow for water drainage. Place a thin and light (aluminum or plastic or whatever) grating over the sheet metal so that if (when) water gets in, it doesn’t get trapped between the foam and the sheet metal and can easily drain out of the holes we drilled. Then add foam and the subfloor. Problem solved. Simple. Cheap. Effective. It could have saved this floor.

The propane tank will be pulled out, cleaned up and painted. It looks pretty ugly at the moment, but again, it’s mostly surface rust. Not a big job.




This is the sheet metal below the floor as I get closer to the kitchen. I’m so happy about this! I didn’t want to see rust and rot go under the kitchen cabinets. Now, I don’t have to remove them.


Two sections cleaned up. Notice the bolt being pointed to. This is structural, holding the floor to the chassis.



In the yellow circle, the wood floor was between the bolt head and the steel frame. In the red circle, you guessed it: luan. Rotting luan. Again, this is all structural. Not much I can do with the luan, but I did put in a new bolt flat against the frame so that at least the wood of the subfloor is no longer a factor.



If you look again two pictures up, you can see that these are really big spaces between the frames. The center opening above the transmission is something like 26”x36”. It might have been ok when the RV was new and everything was laminated together, but now that it’s all fallen apart, it needs more support.

So I bolted in these pieces …



… to support this wood. This is pressure treated. It cuts the size of the hole in half.



The small hoist I used to lift out the propane tank.



Propane tank de-rusted and rustoleumed. It still needs another coat.



As for fixing the floor, I’m probably going to be using sheet metal and bending the edges to create a pan, then screw this to the framing. That’s probably the best thing to do.

David

[israndy]

Did you sand the tank? How did you de-rust it? I have only light surface rust, do you think it's from the leaking of the floor that you got all the rust on your tank?



I was gonna wire brush it and Rustoleum it in place, mask off the rest of the area and let the paint fly. If I get some on the front of the basement area that might be good as it too is getting rusty. Probably use black on it through.

-Randy

[SeeMore]

My method for 'surface' rust -

Apply Naval Jelly, let sit for 5-10 minutes, wash off with water & nylon brush. If rust is still visible re-apply jelly and repeat. Once the rust is gone, prime and paint promptly - waiting a few hours will result in new rust almost immediately.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Loctite-1...3472/203009241

[ijustlee]

Wow, I really admire all you are going through to fix what the factory didn't do right. Just imagine what it would take if you hadn't bought a "quality" product! Maybe someday after you have some miles on your tight rig you could test drive a stock unit and compare how they feel going down the road. I'd bet your rebuilt camper will be noticeably quieter and feel more solid driving down the road. At least while sleeping through a rain storm in your motorhome you will know that it's not rotting out worse on the way home! I'm glad to see that I'm not the only person that can get obsessive about fixing something right! I'm sure at least a few others on this forum know what you are going through! Keep up the good work!

[daa1111]

Hi Randy,
I can't really pin down why the tank rusted. Yes, the floor was leaking, holes right above the tank. But the compartment is also open to the road below, open to tire and road spray. Maybe it wasn't painted well enough to begin with. Just don't know.
About getting the rust off: Years ago I had bad reactions to all things chemical, so I stay away as much as I can. I use alcohol instead of Acetone or any other solvent almost always. My point is that I'm sure there are many chemical rust removers that work quite well and are faster than the way I do it--but I want to stay away from the chemicals.
So I just used a wire brush. As bad as my tank was rusted, it only took a couple of hours to clean it. But what I found is that a softer, stainless steel brush instead of the normal, hard steel wire bushes with the wood handles works much better. I can brush the rust with the hard brush, and yes, a lot of rust comes off. But when I brush it with the soft brush, it almost all comes off.
Anyway, probably not the best way, but that's what I do.
And about removing the tank: it was an advantage that I had to remove the floor--because pulling the tank up with a chain hoist was fairly easy. Getting it out any other way would be very hard, I think. My guess is that it weighs somewhere between 100-150 lbs. At least it felt that way given the awkward position. And I also found, at least on my RV, that if I lowered it to the ground (which would have been really hard to do if I didn't have access through the floor given that my bolts were behind the tank), it still wouldn't fit under the edge of the RV without jacking up the RV. So if you can do it in place, that, I think, would save you a lot of headache.
David

[israndy]

All sage advice, thanks for it. I'll follow in your footsteps as I have the brushes already and a half used can of white. Hopefully that will be enough as I am mostly spot painting, but will get the overall at least a single coat. Thanks

-Randy

[daa1111]

Hi all,

Another update.

First, it took a while for me to continue to work on the passenger side wall because I had a leak I couldn’t find. It was coming from up high, between the two windows, behind an aluminum frame. I didn’t think it was from the roof itself since it’s a fiberglass roof and looked pretty good. I thought it might be from the awning track, so I re-caulked the entire top edge of the track and re-caulked all of the rivets, but still the leak continued. I thought it might be the air-conditioner leaking with the water running down inside the ceiling (more on that below). Finally, after poking around, I realized that when someone installed the new awning and brackets, they used new holes and didn’t bother to seal the old ones. The open holes were under the new bracket, so I never saw them. Anyway, I caulked them temporarily and the leak stopped. I think this needs a more permanent fix, but that’s for later.

The awning, by the way, along with the refrigerator cowling on the roof, are the only things I found on the entire RV that aren’t original.



Below are the sheet metal pans I made for the floor. They fit very snug to minimize air movement.



And then the insulation. As in other places, it’s cut a half inch shy of all edges which will be filled with spray foam. The sheet metal will also be riveted to the frames. Yes, the wood beams I added are bare, but remember, they’re pressure treated and should be fine.



I had to replace the antennae crank below ($10 USD for what is probably a 25 cent plastic handle). Personally, I haven’t turned on a TV in almost five years and don’t even own one, but it sure looks better with a new handle.
But when I opened the cabinet door, I found it hits the handle. That might be why it broke. Airstream’s been designing RVs for decades, and they can’t figure out a better place for the antennae?



Now for the air conditioner. I removed the inner plastic housing. Below is one of four bolts securing it to the roof. So far, so good. But …



… uh oh. What happened? Run out of long bolts?

“Well, that’s OK. We’ll just put in a shorter one.”

“But it won’t be secured to the roof! Or compress the gasket to keep the air conditioner from leaking!”

“Sshh. Don’t say anything. Just leave it. No one will notice until the warranty runs out.”

Is this not beyond belief?



The passenger side wall going in. The plywood in the left window, by the way, is just to keep the plastic from flapping around in the wind.



In goes the window.



Um, well, that’s a lot of space.



And another on the other side! (see below picture)

Well, yeah. Another screw-up by Airstream. And a lot more work for me. (I still keep thinking I can’t find more problems, but I keep finding them.)

A little background: This window was leaking badly. It is right above the propane tank. You know, where the floor was rotted out, where even the sheet metal was rusted through, where the propane tank was all rusted…
And this window is the only repair work attempted by a previous owner that I found. I say “attempted” because, of course, the window was still leaking. But it had been taken out and completely resealed by someone. But it couldn’t be done properly because the hole in the wall is JUST TOO BIG.

Here are the numbers:

Window frame: 22 3/8” (56.83cm) wide; 30 3/4” (78.1cm) high.
Hole: 21 ¾ (55.24cm) wide; 30” (76.2cm) high.

To put that in perspective, that means the frame is only 5/8” (1.58cm) wider than the hole and 3/4” (1.9cm) longer than the hole.

To put that in greater perspective, that means the window frame will only overlap the fiberglass skin by 5/16” (0.79cm) top and bottom and 3/8” (0.95cm) on both sides. That’s not workable. That’s why it was leaking.



I tried to make it work, but ruined the butyl tape twice. Here’s why (see the diagram; the flange is the curved part). There’s just such a big gap that there’s nothing to hold the butyl tape in. And that’s assuming you can get the window perfectly centered in the hole, which is very difficult. I mean if the window is only 1/8” (0.31cm) off, then one edge of the window will have only a 3/16” (0.48cm) overlap. If you try to slide the window while trying to center it, the tape gets all fouled up. And even if you could place it correctly, how can anyone guarantee that this window will never move when the whole RV is rocking and rolling and twisting and shifting on down the road? They can’t. It doesn’t have to move much to develop a leak. It’s hopeless. It’s wrong. It’s inexcusable. Nice going Airstream. Buy a ruler, hire a guy with a steady hand and do some quality control.



Here’s the bottom left of the window opening. The wood you see is wood that I had put in previously to better support the window. That’s going to help with trying to fix this.

(By the way, these are Hehr windows. I know nothing much about them, and I know nothing about other manufacturer’s windows. But it couldn’t hurt to put a much wider flange on the frames to give a lot more surface for caulk. My windows only have a 3/4” (1.9cm) flange. I mean, why not make it bigger? That could do nothing more than help solve a big problem area for RVs and the extra cost would be negligible.)



The below diagram shows what’s in my mind at this point. More epoxy coated wood, filling the gap, giving more surface area for the caulk. That, I think, will solve the problem (of course, the 1.5 x 1.5 wood is not to scale). I hope I only need to do this on two of the four window edges—where I have my existing 1.5 x 1.5s.

Doing this will, though, shift the window up and to the right. I may, then, need to make a new, inner wall panel. We’ll see.



I talked to RV dealers before I bought this one and I asked several of them why RVs fall apart and lose their value so quickly. They all seemed to tell me the same thing: because RVs are always driving down the road and bouncing around.

Really? I can’t imagine a boat manufacturer or dealer blaming the ocean for a boat falling apart.

Just a curiosity: does anyone know if Airstream actually built the Cutter Motorhome? Or did they outsource it and just slap their name on it?

And just for the hell of it: a picture of me. No rot. No rust. No leaks.

Well, maybe a little surface rust.



David

[mayco]

Your tenacity is amazing. Youre going to end up with a fine rig, keep calm and carry on.

[Gsmblue]

Enjoying following your adventure here! Keep it up!

[daa1111]

Hi all,

It’s been a while, and I’m just playing catchup here. I’m actually much further along than what I’m showing today.

This is what I did to make the window frame smaller. It doesn’t look too pretty, but the wood is encapsulated in epoxy and it does what it was meant to do: made the opening smaller. Now there’s more surface area for the window frame to catch.



The window is in and fitting tight. I have confidence in it now.



By the way. I found what seem like a good way to put in the butyl tape when reinstalling the windows. I let it hang over the edge by a small amount. It lets me know I have actually grabbed the edge of the frame as I meant to.



And finally, the front passenger window goes in. Now all the windows are back.



The day after I reinstalled the front window, it rained, and the frame was dripping. It was coming in right in through the joint itself. For now, I just taped it on the outside. I’ll deal with it another day.


Two days later, we had a lot more rain, and water was now coming in through the bottom track. It was coming down both sides of the RV in a stream from the awning tracks, overflowing the tiny holes where the water should drain, and coming inside. I know the holes are clear on both sides because I had the tracks themselves out of the frame and cleaned everything weeks ago. The drain holes were simply being overwhelmed.

I have not looked at other window designs, but this is how my Hehr windows are designed (sort of):



And so I’m thinking, couldn’t they be designed as in the following diagram? With this, even broken seals will mean nothing. The window simply can’t leak. This design would eliminate both of these leaks.



Next I started on the rest of the floors, and it was music to my eyes.



No rot! No moisture!



Just a little in the far left of the bedroom.



Which was quickly and easily replaced.



I later noticed the overhead above the dash sagging. I guess I never looked at it closely enough before. And so down it came. Full of rot and rust.



And so I replaced the wood and cleaned the rust and painted the steel. The vinyl was still in good condition and it looks good now.



This is under the bed. That ridiculous wire is common in this motorhome. Just hanging around. That wire should be cut to size, secured, and hidden as much as possible. It is now.



A mouse nest under the boxes built to hide the wires. Now that, Airstream, is how you insulate!



I’m thinking about writing a movie entitled “Hack Job with a Drill Bit”, inspired by Airstream.

This receptacle was loose. I took it out to find out why. What a way to cut a hole--just hack it out with a drill bit.



The couple of times I lay down on the bed, it felt strangely uncomfortable, but I couldn’t figure out why. Here’s why. The bottom half of the bed is 3/4 of an inch higher than the top half. It’s fixed now.



Under that platform below is the pass-through storage area. It’s half inch plywood and has absolutely no insulation on it. I put in an inch and a half of foam on the face. The top has added plywood (it was really weak), but there’s really no way to insulate better without raising the height of the entire bed.



Then, unfortunately, I found more water damage and so tore it apart. There was mold that I killed by spraying pure bleach. But it was actually not that wet. The foam under seemed dry and strong. The line you see under the window is where I’m going to cover it with Masonite.



This is inside of the removed corner cabinet. As bad as this looks, it was easy to cut out and not really that wet (This was the same on both sides of the motorhome). This was leaking from the outside molding between the back, fiberglass cap and the fiberglass siding. I had fixed the caulking months ago.



The other side.



This dumb little picture is under a side closet. That spec of light is looking outside. It’s about ¾” in diameter. It’s where pipes for the water heater pass through. What it really is is a doorway for mice. It’s closed up now with spray foam.



This opening is under the bed. It’s either a passageway for cold and hot air to come in, or another door for mice. I haven’t decided.



This is an improperly taped solder joint. The wire that was soldered on isn’t being used, and was just sitting there with its ends also exposed. There are lots of unused wires just hanging around this motorhome. I guess they wire for all options even if they aren’t installed? Or do they use the same wiring harness for all models of motorhomes? Don’t know. In either case, so much of the wiring was a mess. It's fixed now.



This is the new wood I put on top of the pass-through storage box. The small L-shape on the left is just a night table of sorts I added on both sides. (Now that it's done, I realize I could have made them a little bigger. They're really useful. Pictures will come on the next update.)



In the corner is unpainted Masonite to line …



… the cabinets. And notice I painted the walls. I read somewhere that you can prime using Glidden's Gripper, the same stuff I used to glue foam. It seems to work really well. Only time will tell. And I really like it. It's such a clean look without all the patterns. I wound up painting all the walls in the entire coach except for the kitchen area. Maybe later.


And like I said, I’m much further along than this. Actually, I'm near completion. I’ll update soon.

Thanks for reading,
David

[Keyair]

Nice work!

My opinion on your window frame...
We have the same issue on Classic motorhomes. Water flows down off the roof onto the sideglass, and if the drains are blocked, the water overflows to the inside and rots the floors.

My suggestion is to drill thru from the drain holes on the outside into that inner channel to allow water to flow between the two.

[ijustlee]

Yes, it's amazing how a lot of RV things such as your windows are made. I can never be sure if it's scrimping on materials or just not understanding the job to be done. I'd like to add drains to the back window channel on my trailer. You will have a very good motor home when you are done I hope you get a lot of use from it!

[israndy]

I am at the stage where I put new wood in over the floor. What did you do about those bolt head?



I was thinking I would just notch out the wood so it doesn't conflict with the old bolts as I cannot figure out how to remove them...

Oh and my tank is MUCH rustier after scraping it off. I'll have to do the navel jelly trick. I actually used rust reformer from Rust Oleum on the Onan generator that was my previously most rusty thing.

-Randy