Outside wall questions

loser77 · February 10, 2016

Not sure if this is the right place to post this but.....Went and looked at an older rv we are thinking of buying. We are planning on doing a complete remodel of the inside to a 50's diner look so I'll have the whole insode gutted out. My question is it appears that the outside wall has come loose from the structure in on spot right behind the rear wheel and I was curious if anyone has any experience fixing this issue? It's a mid 80's Georgie Boy Excalibur full fiberglass body. I cant imagine this would be a terrible hard fix but I don't know? Any insight would be great!

Thanks

Stephen

Alie&Jim's Carrilite · February 10, 2016

It's probably water damage. The fiberglass outside is usually glued to a luan wood with a contact cement type glue. Water finds its way in and rots the luan which allows the Fiberglass to bubble.

It's not a terribly hard fix if you are comfortable using fiberglass and epoxy resins.

loser77 · February 10, 2016

Awesome! Thanks! I figured it wasn't too hard after seeing a couple youtube videos. It's a giant flat piece of fiberglass so I figure the repairs can't be too bad!

Kirk W · February 11, 2016

Georgie Boy was using a laminated wall and it probably is what you are looking at. The fiberglass was layered into a mold for the entire wall in one section. set into this would then be the framework of the wall, usually metal frame members, with foam block insulating material filling all of the spaces between frame members and the a layer of plywood on the interior side of the wall. All of this was glued together and bonded either by vacuum or by pressure rollers, using a glue that would not harm the polystyrene insulating foam. These glues at the time had to be water soluble in order to not melt the foam insulation. There have been some reports of success in repairing this kind of problems but you need to be very careful that you do not use any type of glue that will melt that foam or it will make the problems much worse. the first thing you need to do is to be sure that you know where the water intrusion came from, if that was the cause. Some of the de-lamination problems were due to poor adhesion in the bonding process or poor quality glues, but most common cause is a water leak into the wall, usually around a window.

In my opinion, it would be a mistake to buy any RV that has begun to delaminate as the problem usually continues to get worse and I have heard of some success in using water soluble glues injected into the void and then applying pressure using braces and plywood but if the water intrusion has not been corrected, it will continue and get worse. I suspect that you will find that there is a window somewhere above and near the problem area. If you have one spot doing this, there may well be others so inspect the entire RV very carefully. If it were me, I'd keep shopping for one that does not have that sort of problem.