The life of our lemon...

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boatbuilder said:
From the looks of your repair this will be better than new when you are done.  Repairs look awesome.

Thank you, Charlie.  We appreciate the encouragement. 
 
Flex, Our first bus was an older one that required some work but (like you) we were happy to it, we have never shy'd away from work.  In the end we absolutely loved that bus, I still have photos of it and look back at them remembering the work and the fun when we were using it. We learned more in just a few months about RV's, how they work and why, I think we knew more about RV's than most who have been doing it for years. When you are done you will know more than those who just go buy one and then take it to the shop when work is needed.  You will be answering our questions because you will know not only the what but the why - KCCO!! 8)
 
Greetings BikerFlex&HappyJen,

Good luck with the project and looks like it is coming along fine.

You could go back in about 6 months to the dealer who sold you the 5th wheel and look at the most expensive RV's they have. Then say we're going to buy this model but remember that 5th wheel with all of the work you sold us.  ;D

Just kidding but you have the right attitude and wishing you good luck from now on.
 
ClickHill said:
Flex, Our first bus was an older one that required some work but (like you) we were happy to it, we have never shy'd away from work.  In the end we absolutely loved that bus, I still have photos of it and look back at them remembering the work and the fun when we were using it. We learned more in just a few months about RV's, how they work and why, I think we knew more about RV's than most who have been doing it for years. When you are done you will know more than those who just go buy one and then take it to the shop when work is needed.  You will be answering our questions because you will know not only the what but the why - KCCO!! 8)

Good story.  Encouraging. I know you guys must know every inch of that bus.  And, like us, there must have been times when you weren't sure who was winning the battle; you or the bus.  Eventually, you all won!  As you said, "When you are done you will know more...." than others.  We believe that, too.  Good at you for not shying away from it!  Way to run to a problem instead of running away from it. 

It sure encourages newbies like us.

Flex & Jen
 
BikerFlex&HappyJen said:
Good story.  Encouraging. I know you guys must know every inch of that bus.  And, like us, there must have been times when you weren't Dsure who was winning the battle; you or the bus.  Eventually, you all won!  As you said, "When you are done you will know more...." than others.  We believe that, too.  Good at you for not shying away from it!  Way to run to a problem instead of running away from it. 

It sure encourages newbies like us.

Flex & Jen

I spent last summer completely  gutting and replacing the entire floor/decking to the trailer frame. Complete nightmare.
What doesn't kill us makes us bolder. :D
 
Another long hard day of rv reno. After a couple days of rain, yesterday being an abundance of rain, we came to realize we still have a minor leak in each corner. Not a lot, but still, leaks. We left the interior walls open to be able to monitor this until we are certain of a good seal. We do know some water may be coming from the under body since the membrane was comprised quite extensively not only when we did our frame rebuild but it was compromised before this by who knows who. Whoever attempted to do a quick fix to the water damage to begin with and did a poor attempt at it sliced the membrane in several places. Any advice for this please chime in!

DH and I decided to focus first on our roof. We have about four days of good, dry weather so it was decided we will clean & reseal the roof as well as focus on all the seams that need resealed/caulked.
Our rv has a rubber roof, but somewhere along it's life it was coated with an aluminum coating. Ugh. It has flaked and still had reminents of it. So we scraped and scooped those up as best we could without doing any damage. We then gave the roof a good wash with Spic n Span and was it filthy! I don't even want to try to guess when it was last washed up there. After a good look at everything, we made a joint decision to scrape off the abundant of dirty, cracked and PILED on sealant caulk and start all the seams from fresh. We made the right choice. We found too many areas that were not quite right. The plastic skylight above the shower was cracked in many places when it was screwed down too tight so tomorrow we will be purchasing a new one to put in.
We were able to scrape off all our vents (3), the skylight, a vent pipe and some of the areas where the chair rail it attached to the roof.

Before I climbed down for the night I told DH as I passed him the container of our scraped reminents I wanted to weigh the hefty container of dirty old sealant/caulk....we took off about 7 POUNDS of sealant! Wow.

We are tired and sore but very pleased with our hard work today. Tomorrow we will hopefullly finish scraping, cleaning around all areas, replacing the skylight, and resealing/caulking all roof structures and seams. Sunday we will be doing a full roof clean and roof seal. Let's hope this will all help us stop those pesky corner leaks.
Pic #1&2: before and after skylight
Pic #3&4: before and after a vent
Pic #5: our 7 pounds of sealant
 

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I admire your Perseverance!  It will be a great reward for you to see the finished product!  I love seeing the pictures of your progress!
 
Thank you Peggy! It's encouraging when we get compliments. We keep pushing forward, one day at a time.

Today we sealed all the roof items, removed the chair rail, patched where the chair rail used to be, and also installed the new skylight. It looks so much better! I forgot to take a picture of the completed skylight, so I will hopefully post that along with the progress we make tomorrow. Planning on washing and sealing the roof tomorrow & cleaning/sealing(caulking) the gutter and awning rails. There is some cracking along some of those seams as well as where the rubber roof meets the gutter rails. So onward we go!!
 
Hello OP, new here, but not new to tt repairs..lol. your thread had me interested to join here, so thought I would start off with just saying, my hats off to you for hanging in there, and taking it in stride !. I myself have been where you are at now, and there is nothing wrong at all with doing a little hard work to make your tt all better !. bought a 1992 Fleetwood wilderness a few years back, turns out, the roof was leaking pretty bad ?, I spent many..MANY man hours working on it, as well as cash, and with me being disabled, cash did not come easy..lol. needless to say, I have replaced my rubber roof, sky lights, paneling on the inside, floors redone, carpet down. yes..lots of work for someone that barely knows anything about this kinda work ?, but I dived in head first, and got-r-done !.lol. anyway, my hats off to you for your great work, WELL DONE !.
 
I am watching this thread closely as we are about to start our own, we are electing to replace our roof to be sure we get all the leaks.
BWT I love the old screwdriver.
 
Appreciate the motivating words Alan and Canuck. We keep plugging away at this project and it's slowly coming together for the good.
 
BikerFlex&HappyJen said:
Appreciate the motivating words Alan and Canuck. We keep plugging away at this project and it's slowly coming together for the good.
Your welcome !. if I could get some pics to post ?, I would show you what I had to deal with ?, then you would feel better about your trailer !..lol.
 
I feel your pain. We bought a 12 year old motorhome and fell in love with it long before we had a clue what we were doing. When we brought it home and found a few little things wrong, decided we did not know what we had got ourselves into. The people we bought it from lied some. The roof had been torn and replaced to some degree and I did not notice , mainly because I did not do my homework about Winnebago fiberglass roofs. One thing I thought was strange is that before I bought the MH I did a carfax and it did not show the roof repair, even though it was an insurance claim. I did not have a clue about tires either, just thought they looked good. They were the original tires. Half the windows needed replacing, bed needed new pump and remotes, slide toppers leaking, tv system all messed up. Anyway, you get the picture, but it was all my own fault, for not doing my research first. Even if I put 30K into it, still a major savings over new and I can see many good years ahead. We are looking forward to a lot of traveling, and if it gets too frustrating, we will chalk it up as experience and pity the person we buy our next one from as we will do a much more thorough search. I personally would still buy used, mainly because we can't afford new and would rather someone else take the depreciation hit. Good luck. I like your attitude and there is a lot of help out there.
 
Here's the latest update for all our fellow rv'ers that are following our project. We had some nice weather last few days and we got quite a bit done. I scraped off the dirty and gross stuff around our windows and door on the one side of the camper and went around resealing all of them. They look amazing and refreshing. I also scraped off the front two corner moldings in the front of the rv because someone before us thought it was ok to caulk them with silicone. Seriously. I scraped and pulled and snapped silicone off the molding for awhile. Finally getting them prepped and ready they were finally sealed properly with Dicor non-leveling sealant. Also, sealed the seam where rubber roof meet the gutter where there was decent cracking. Additionally, the seam along the awning rail. Sealant success!

DH (Flex) did a great modification to our gutter and awning pieces. He ended up cutting them about 10 inches back from the upper/back corner. They used to end and shoot water right down our back corner seam of our camper. Now he has it being detoured away before the water gets there. Last night/today it has been raining, we went out and good news....we have no water inside whatsoever!! Tomorrow we are hoping to start putting back together the interior, beginning with the remaining subfloor. Hoping to line our back wall with tongue n groove cedar. Found a nice vinyl plank flooring that looks like grey driftwood.

Hopefully our next few updates will be a bit more exciting.

Picture 1&2 ~ before and after window sealant
Picture 3 ~ Front corner sealant complete
Picture 4 ~ Two side windows sealant completed
 

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Excited to give everyone an update on our progress! The walls are going back up! This is such a great time for us. DH also put the subfloor back down and now he is working on replacing the paneling pieces before we install the cedar on the wall. The entire back wall from the cabinets down to the floor will be cedar. Also, the side walls from about 33 inches on down will be cedar and then we will put up some trim/chair rail where the wall and cedar meet. We purchased some vinyl plank flooring and will also be putting that in soon.
In the bedroom area, the walls are painted and cabinet hardware has been recoated from gold to a stainless steel finish. Actually I recoated all the hardware in the rv. No more 70's gold! Lol.
There will be a lot more pictures to come as the final touches get put into place. When we can see everything starting to get out back together it gives us confidence that we are doing it and doing it well. When we are done with this, we will have a '99 Dutchmen on the outside, but an upgraded and renewed interior (and quite a bit of framing).
Also, in case you are all wondering...DH is leaving the back lower left corner without paneling. This area is within the dinette seating/storage area. He is going to be installling a plexiglass door here so we can monitor and have access in case we suspect anything. The end is nearing soon...at least, we hope so! It would be nice to finally be able to take our rv on its first excursion!

Pic 1 ~ Before flooring and paneling replacement
Pic 2 & 3 ~ paneling starting to get reinstalled
Pic 4 ~ New Subfloor
 

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Wondering about one thing...
How did hubby get the subfloor under the sole plate of the existing walls? Reason I ask is I might have to do something similar in my TT on a small section next to the super slide?
Otherwise, it looks like you guys are well on your way to enjoying the sweat equity you have been putting into this project.
I'm proud of ya!

Keep us posted.
 

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