Rear Quarter Repair?

[donspinelake]

I just got back from a trip to 2 Jack Lake, where I had a parking mishap with my 2003 31’ Spirit. I had pulled in to a narrow pull-through (not recommended for RVs over 24 feet), and turned the nose of the Itasca to the left to level things out. I didn’t realize that the passenger rear quarter swung out to the right, catching a Pine tree, and pulling the lower 3’ of the back panel out about 1.5”. Once I got untangled from the tree and dug the bark out, I was able to push things back together, and applied Gorilla Tape to hold things in place. The following picture shows the current status, after a week and 1000 miles.

As you can see, the tape has stretched, and the corner trim is 3/4” to 1” back from where it should be. It does not appear that the fiberglass panels were damaged, and I wonder if I could just remove the tape, clean things up, and then clamp the corner together using construction adhesive? Cost to do this should be minimal, and I hate to search for a body shop that does RVs if I don’t really need to.

Any words of wisdom from others who have dealt with this kind of a problem?

[BobC]

I don't see this particular area in the sealant call-out sheet for your coach. I'd call Winnebago and see what they recommend. You don't want to use something that's incompatible with what's already there.

You'll also want to remove as much of the old adhesive as possible since new adhesive doesn't stick well to old, Winnebago should be able to advise you what solvent to use.

Is the corner a corner molding or is it part of the rear panel? If it's a corner molding, you could remove it, clean things up and put it back on using 3m VHB tape, which is used by many RV manufacturers for attaching body panels to frames (much less messy and no long term clamping):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYpj1nbAn5k

Good luck.

[powercat_ras]

It looks like from your photo that your vertical corner molding has a vinyl insert that can be removed that hides self tapping screws that were used to fasten the back wall into an aluminum piece on the back edge of the side wall. I believe that they also ran a line of adhesive/sealant down that edge of the side wall before screwing the back onto it as well.

It looks like there is also horizontal molding with a vinyl insert with screws behind it that fastens the back wall to the floor, too. There is a aluminum piece on the edge of the floor and the edge of the side wall that the self tapping screws were grabbing in to.

Hopefully the screws either pulled thru the back wall aluminum pieces or pulled out of the aluminum pieces in the floor and side walls. If so ...

I would remove all the self tapping screws behind the vinyl inserts in and slightly past the areas that have pulled apart, replace adhesive/sealant with the one recommended by Winnebago parts, and re-fasten by shooting same size stainless steel self tapping screws in different locations so they fasten into new locations in the side wall and floor aluminum pieces. Then finally put back the vinyl inserts.

Construction adhesive might work but you likely could never get the corner apart again without destroying it and it may not "move" as it needs to when the body flexes as you use the coach. The adhesive Winnebago uses stays flexible pretty much forever.

If it appears that the aluminum pieces in the floor and or side wall were warped then your problem is over my head and I suggest you post photos and seek more advice.

[donspinelake]

BobC, thank you. I will definitely look into the VHB tape.
Powercat_RAS, thank you, also. It sounds like repositioning the self-taping screws and putting it back together like it was originally constructed would be the wisest approach. Construction adhesive would probably result in a permanent fix that I might well regret.

I do appreciate both of your advice.