Advice? Roof problems 1998 Minnie Class C

[Dallas]

I am a new member. I have a 1998 Minnie class C 22’. I love this rig more than any vehicle I have ever owned. The bed over the cab area has rotted wood and the roof is collapsing. RV body shops want $15,000 to repair it. Has anyone ever tried it themselves? Can that whole section just be removed? I don’t want to just give it up because it has a big engine with only 96,032 miles. All the systems work! Has Onan 4000 generator. I love it but don’t have $15,000 to put into a 23 yr old vehicle. Has anyone ever just removed the cab over portion? .

[Eagle5]

Hi Dallas,
I would search on-line for folks who have rebuilt their own cabover areas; below is one example. Fifteen thousand is expensive; how many bids did you get? I guess you need to compare that cost to replacing your Class C.
Welcome to the forum.
Eagle5

Rebuilding a Class C cabover

[BobC]

The first thing I'd recommend is to research how the roof is constructed. Most of the videos I saw involve wood framing and plywood. Most, if not all, Winnebago MHs have roofs that are a foam sandwich with 1/8" luan plywood on each side of about three inches of foam and minimal framing. I don't know what they were like in '98 (my 2002 Class A is foam). If your's is a foam sandwich, most videos won't be of much help. If you have an overhead vent you can remove so you can see the edges of the cut out, you should be able to figure this out.

If you do have the foam sandwich roof, AZ Expert has some videos on repairing Winnebago roofs which should be informative. Here's one example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWhQ7rm5Paw

Here's one involving a partially collapsed roof:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EewwqoINDn4

Even if your roof is a foam sandwich, there's no reason you can't rebuild the cabover part in a more traditional manner if that seems simpler. It's a fairly small area and hopefully the damage is localized. I'm assuming you want to keep your MH "until the wheels fall off" so you're not going to be too worried about it being perfectly restored to factory specs. Think of it as an upside down boat.

You can buy sheet filon (fiberglass) like that used originally:

https://cranecomposites.com/cci-rv/filon/

Good luck and keep us posted.

[Morich]

I did a roof way back (before I knew better?) and found it was possible but when done, I was not entirely sure it was something I would do again!
But it was at a time when I did not have enough money to make money the easy way!

So you are getting good advise to check what is in the ceiling at that point in time. Early 70', it was a foam sandwich which made it super hard to get the outer metal off the foam. Part of the question is if you have a space to keep the Rv inside or out of the weather while you do the work, then there is the question of how long the leak has been ignored and allowed to get bigger.

Did the main frame get rotted and need replaced? That expands the space a whole bunch as you have to cut way back to get to good wood.
Is it at a corner where you will need to work on both side and roof?
Likely the inside is not usable, so what do you put back once demo is done?
Can it be done all from inside or do you have to go into peeling and rolling the outer roof back due to too much involved inside?

We were able to go from the inside, scrape the foam off after heating, lay in new foam and add a panel which matched (kinda!) and then used rattle cans to repaint the burned off roof! Doing it now, I would likely use an oscillating tool to clear the foam much easier but they were not around then!

It did not look bad from the ground and we were able to use it for a couple years and sold at a pretty nice profit, -----if you don't count labor!