The work begins. The front of the motorhome is raised with a jack and lowered on wood blocks. The front wheels are removed in order to inspect the front suspension and steering components. I gave Dad a hand loosening the wheel lug nuts, as they were extremely tight. We were the both of us on the wrench, lenghtened by a 4ft steel tube, and we had to heat the nuts with the torch to break them loose. For the rear wheels, Dad explained that a special tool will be needed to take the dual wheels off.
The rear window
Seen from the outside, the rear window has been painted over with the same gray color as the rest. From the inside, a piece of white Coroplast (sheet of currugated plastic. Temporary signage is often made of or Coroplast) has been screw over the window to block it. No trims, very ugly work, and there is a water leak from that window.
On this picture, looking towards the back, you can see the white plastic sheet covering the window:
Dad removed the plastic panel, only to discover that the window has been sealed many times with various types of rubber sealants, even foam has been sprayed on the bottom. What a dirty job. And even with all this, water still leaks in!
The good news is that all the stuff they used trying to seal the window is not sticking hard to the fiberglass finish on the inside, and everything should be easy to clean. Water gets in around the rubber seal. This seal is the type that uses a locking strip. The locking strip is missing, the window is not held in place very tightly and this allows water to seep in. With help from his good friend Gerry, Dad correctly sealed the window and installed a locking strip. This should take care of the water leak issue. Inside, some kind of trim will have to be added around the window to hide the holes where the plastic sheet was screwed.
Outside, centered above the rear window, is a metal strip screwed where both halves of the main fiberglass shells meet. The joint at this place didn't look too good and might also be leaking. Just in case, Dad redid that joint, it took most part of a day just to get the rusted screws out. He put some new sealant, and screwed back the metal strip with new stainless steel screws. This can be seen on the next picture. There is still some cleaning to do around the window seal.
At the same time, Dad also resealed the front passenger windshield. This passenger windshield seems to have been installed slightly off-position, as one edge is slightly outside its frame. We'll have to live with this, but at least once correctly sealed it should not leak water anymore.
Then Dad found some rotten wood at the door step. This shouldn't be too hard to fix. The battery compartement is close by, and the cover of the compartment doesn't close quite right, this will have to be fixed also.
Wheel wells
There is quite a bit of rust inside the front wheel wells. That's inside rust, as the outside is made of figerglass and doesn't rust. What is rusted is in fact the floor below the front seats. That's where Dad found the most significant problem so far. The floor is made of a metal sheet (visible from inside the wheel well), a thick plywood, and the inside carpet. The metal sheet is completely rusted out and the plywood is mostly rotten on the edges. As water was leaking in from the windshields, the wood and carpet soaked the water, causing the rust and rot.
Fixing this is a major job. Everything has to come out: steering wheel, front seats, pedals, carpet, etc.
The rusted part of the floor has been cut out with a cutting disk.
View from the inside (yes you can see outside through the hole!):
Original floor:
That's it for now. It's only the beginning!
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