2007 Journey 36SG: Tracing a Windshield Leak

[tim myers]

My 2007 Journey had never leaked till this morning. We were in some pretty heavy rain this morning before leaving MI for MN. There was a nice puddle of water on the dash about 18" right of the left most edge of the drivers side window (two section windshield). The drips were coming off the inside windshield trim.

I had a local shop, inspect and re-seal the roof as needed last fall. Much to my chagrin they used Eternabond at the lap of the front cap to the roof. I hate that crap, and I told them to no avail. Anyway there should be no leak at the cap, I hope.

The rubber molding has never, in my opinion been installed correct. It is loose and is not securely fastened to the perimeter of the windshield.

I plan to give it a thorough inspection, when I get to ND to see if I can see any gaps in the sealant. I can get some sealant but what should i be looking for? Can someone explain to me how the rubber molding is supposed to be attached? Is it wedged in the void between the metal and the glass, or is it held in place by the sealant, or another glue type material?

I can check the marker lights and to be honest it would be easy enough to put some sealant around them, I think, or is it best to remove them and start over with sealant? What type sealant is recommended?

 

[Morich]

I would definitly take a good look at the other parts in the area before going for the totally hard windshield things! I find it too easy to look at small stuff and ignore the easier things to repair. But there are also lots more of those small things, so simple odds say to me, they are real suspects?
No idea iof this fits the type and location of your lights but easy to check. If we thinik about what happens to things like lights sticking up on the front of the RV while we are drivign, it gets obvious that there is going to belots of pressure to force water in at odd places.
When I look at how those lights may have been sealed in the past, I tend to take them off and start over! I find lots of various sealers gobbed on at teh edges of the light but that is not the best in my view. One is that it can leave a dip or pocket where water can stand long enough to find a path though! I want water to go away as soon as possible, so no dips to hold it! Then there is the weather that fights us all the time when we see sealer on the outside?
I take anything like a light off, clean the area totally clean, down to scrubbign with rubbing alcohol! I don't favor adding gunk on top of dirt that tends to come off!
When the lioght is off, I find there is often a hole through to the inside where the wires have to go inside! Any water that gets past the outside seal can go in. Any water that gets under the glass cover can follow the wires in. So I start with sealing the hole around those wires as a "dam" to help head water off----if I let it get that far! I assume there WILL be mistakes made as I have found I am rarely perfect on that score!
But a second level defense makes sense. Before putting the light back on, I add a circle of sealer around the hole which gets squished/sandwiched between the light and the RV roof as I screw it back down. Those two seals are pretty well protected from any weather damage and I find they last longer when out of the sun! After the cody is down, I add just a thin layer that is smoothed with a finger to the joint between light and roof and also as I put the lens back on. This is NOT gobbed on thick enough to catch water but a finger does pretty good at leaving a trace that I can see but not something one can see from the ground.
It's a touchy subject with many who fight it either way but my choice of sealer on RV is the same I use on houses. I want something that is thin enough to work easily. It is no good if I never want to fight the hard stuff! I use clear silicone in most cases as I find it is easy to work and looks and lasts much better than the expensive hard stuff!
It is true that silicone does require good cleaning as it will not stick to old but I ahve to assume the last guy screwed it up if I am there to fix it, so I go for what works for me!
It is my thought that many pros do not favor silicone because they want to avoid taking time to clean it and much prefer a "quickie", even if it fails in a few years !
Alex Plus clear is my choice.

 

[FIRE UP]

Tim,
While you may have contracted with a company to do some "re-sealing", that doesn't mean the re-sealing is still good. I too HATE that Eternabond crap. Winnebago/Itasca windshields in yours and our eras were prone to issues due to water infiltration in and around that rubber windshield seal. And, by the way, that rubber molding is typically attached to the coach via a section of interior clip that has a special design that captures the "tongue" of that rubber.

It's sometimes not as effective as it should be in holding that rubber wind shield molding in as close to the glass and body as it should. When that rubber lets in rain, lots of it gets almost trapped in there and that promotes RUST. And rusty wind shield frames on Winnes is real common. Our coach is an '04 Itasca Horizon 36GD with the CAT C-7 330HP and is basically the same coach as the Winne Vectra of the same year. It, and the Meridian and the Winne Journey all share the same exact wind shields.

Now, one more thing, while it's a pain to do so, get up on a ladder and very, VERY closely inspect the roof-to-gutter joint. As we all know, it's simply a glued joint for the roofing material and the side walls and gutter. That joint quite often loosens up due to the sealant/adhesive drying up/out and loosing its purchase on both components. When that happens, water running off the roof can find its way through even the smallest of failure points and then infiltrate the inside of the coach and appear to be leaking from the wind shield areas.

And don't over think those clearance lights. They're not rocket science. Remove them, clean all the area, use some Silicone as a sealant and re-install them, finger finish the outer edge all the way around what has squeezed out and you're DONE!!!!!!!!
Scott

 

[tim myers]

An interesting update from this morning. We had no rain last night, but when I lowered the coach I noticed water coming down the inside of the wind shield. Not a lot but quite a bit considering it was probably just dew. I will get on the ladder tomorrow and check the clearance lights, they are on the front not the top of the cap so easy to look at. I may try pouring a glass of water in different locations till my wife sees the water flowing, to try to determine where the leak really is.

This motor home travel is sometimes daunting. i noticed when we left MI that my Orion was charging at a full 50A and was in bulk mode. It shouldn't have been charging this much as the Journey was plugged in to shore power for the past 5 days. When we arrived at Cloquet, MN I checked my shunt and it appears the converter has not been charging the batteries, or at some point stopped charging. Today's travel was the same with the Orion charging at a full 50A. After arriving I checked the shunt and the converter was in fact charging.

I am thinking of picking up a new converter as a spare till I figure out what is going on. If I get in a pinch, I do have a 50A battery charger, I keee in the Journey, mostly in case I need to charge the CRV Battery.

 

[tim myers]

I think I figured out the converter issue, had my son help as I don't wallow around on the floor as well as I used to. Long story short the set screw on the negative cable was not tight, yes there was significant wallowing involved. I was able to get a full half turn on it. I will check it again and re-tighten in a couple days but it seemed to take care of it.

My 6' ladder will not get me high enough to dump water on the clearance lights nor the front cap to roof connection, but I was able to flood the top of the windshield with a few glasses of water and no leakage was noted. Might have to wait till I am back home with my 8' Step Ladder or 14' collapsible ladder to check that out. In the mean time I will hope for no rain and keep a beach towel on the dash to absorb the water.

 

[RayIN]

An interesting update from this morning. We had no rain last night, but when I lowered the coach I noticed water coming down the inside of the wind shield. Not a lot but quite a bit considering it was probably just dew. I will get on the ladder tomorrow and check the clearance lights, they are on the front not the top of the cap so easy to look at. I may try pouring a glass of water in different locations till my wife sees the water flowing, to try to determine where the leak really is.

This motor home travel is sometimes daunting. i noticed when we left MI that my Orion was charging at a full 50A and was in bulk mode. It shouldn't have been charging this much as the Journey was plugged in to shore power for the past 5 days. When we arrived at Cloquet, MN I checked my shunt and it appears the converter has not been charging the batteries, or at some point stopped charging. Today's travel was the same with the Orion charging at a full 50A. After arriving I checked the shunt and the converter was in fact charging.

I am thinking of picking up a new converter as a spare till I figure out what is going on. If I get in a pinch, I do have a 50A battery charger, I keee in the Journey, mostly in case I need to charge the CRV Battery.

The Winnebago factory has always had a very poor front cap to roof gap issue. Water drains off the roof into the gutter, but the gutter is open on the end and dumps runoff into that gap, which it seems is never properly sealed. I finally repaired my MH by cleaning out all the old sealant, then pushing ½" backer rod into the gap and leaving about ½" space to fill with a high quality sealant/adhesive.
It hasn't leaked since my repair job to both sides of the top cap.

 

[Morich]

This sealing and leak is a neverending subjest as well as a neverending job to keep done!
So I have adapted my routine to ignore some of the best advise that I now find on the internet. Simply because there WAS no internet to give me quick and easy info, I had developed what seemed to work best for me! There was no major marketing group to tell me what was best for my RV, so I used what I had found works best on houses over the long haul and went with that! Dumb as that may sound, I have found that there are often major problems with people lying to me when they want to sell something! DUH?
My methods may not work for others and that is fine! But I do not simply go with trying to use one line of defense on water if I can figure out two places to head it off!
Since it is totally impractical to pull body parts off and redo under them every few years and depending on how deep I am into the repair/ resealing, I may or may not go under to put a seal out of sight and weather! But what I do more frequently is replace the seal I CAN get to and redo when it looks like it needs it. That part is also what the weather can work on!
If I see hard brittle stuff that flakes off when I probe it to see how soft it is or if I see tiny cracks in old hard sealer, I assume that hard stuff will break down from the vibrations we get in driving! Time to replace it with something that doesn't get hard and weather!

 

[Chmielowiec]

My 2007 Journey had never leaked till this morning. We were in some pretty heavy rain this morning before leaving MI for MN. There was a nice puddle of water on the dash about 18" right of the left most edge of the drivers side window (two section windshield). The drips were coming off the inside windshield trim.

I had a local shop, inspect and re-seal the roof as needed last fall. Much to my chagrin they used Eternabond at the lap of the front cap to the roof. I hate that crap, and I told them to no avail. Anyway there should be no leak at the cap, I hope.

The rubber molding has never, in my opinion been installed correct. It is loose and is not securely fastened to the perimeter of the windshield.

I plan to give it a thorough inspection, when I get to ND to see if I can see any gaps in the sealant. I can get some sealant but what should i be looking for? Can someone explain to me how the rubber molding is supposed to be attached? Is it wedged in the void between the metal and the glass, or is it held in place by the sealant, or another glue type material?

I can check the marker lights and to be honest it would be easy enough to put some sealant around them, I think, or is it best to remove them and start over with sealant? What type sealant is recommended?

My 2007 Journey had never leaked till this morning. We were in some pretty heavy rain this morning before leaving MI for MN. There was a nice puddle of water on the dash about 18" right of the left most edge of the drivers side window (two section windshield). The drips were coming off the inside windshield trim.

I had a local shop, inspect and re-seal the roof as needed last fall. Much to my chagrin they used Eternabond at the lap of the front cap to the roof. I hate that crap, and I told them to no avail. Anyway there should be no leak at the cap, I hope.

The rubber molding has never, in my opinion been installed correct. It is loose and is not securely fastened to the perimeter of the windshield.

I plan to give it a thorough inspection, when I get to ND to see if I can see any gaps in the sealant. I can get some sealant but what should i be looking for? Can someone explain to me how the rubber molding is supposed to be attached? Is it wedged in the void between the metal and the glass, or is it held in place by the sealant, or another glue type material?

I can check the marker lights and to be honest it would be easy enough to put some sealant around them, I think, or is it best to remove them and start over with sealant? What type sealant is recommended?

This sealing and leak is a neverending subjest as well as a neverending job to keep done!
So I have adapted my routine to ignore some of the best advise that I now find on the internet. Simply because there WAS no internet to give me quick and easy info, I had developed what seemed to work best for me! There was no major marketing group to tell me what was best for my RV, so I used what I had found works best on houses over the long haul and went with that! Dumb as that may sound, I have found that there are often major problems with people lying to me when they want to sell something! DUH?
My methods may not work for others and that is fine! But I do not simply go with trying to use one line of defense on water if I can figure out two places to head it off!
Since it is totally impractical to pull body parts off and redo under them every few years and depending on how deep I am into the repair/ resealing, I may or may not go under to put a seal out of sight and weather! But what I do more frequently is replace the seal I CAN get to and redo when it looks like it needs it. That part is also what the weather can work on!
If I see hard brittle stuff that flakes off when I probe it to see how soft it is or if I see tiny cracks in old hard sealer, I assume that hard stuff will break down from the vibrations we get in driving! Time to replace it with something that doesn't get hard and weather!

Hello Tim I had pretty much the same issue happening on my 39k Journey and went down the rabbit hole on all the possible people are suggesting and what I found was that the windshield was leaking between the frame and back side of the window and tracking. Not positive but it seemed to me that the windshield was installed crooked. What i did was to remove the rubber trim strip and the trim holder strip and jam some 3m sealant into the gap with a putty knife which sealed the leak but with all the setup sealant in place I had to trim the poly holder strip to fit into place so the rubber trim could be put back in place. Been 10 years and no leaks but I am assuming when and if the windshield on that side ever gets replaced ther will be rust to repair and the trim pieces will need to be replaced. Hope this helps.

 

[tim myers]

Sure would like to see a picture of sketch of how that strip attaches in the gap.

 

[Chmielowiec]

I believe it's attached with adhesive which is how i reattached it

 

[Morich]

I am certain thet there can be lots of different ways used to attachthe strip, so be aware that this is just what I have seen. Not to trust it too far! When watching and not doing, I saw the rubber strip as being built with a strip on the inside, along the center of the strip as having a formed part somewhat like a boat anchor but with one fluke missing? Or if you might imagine your hand being rubber to force down into a crack and let your fingers snap out to lock under a metal ridge?
Crude art if looking from an end?

Bigger and harder to Force in that this looks but same idea? They used a ruubber mallet to do the final placement without any adhesive. My thought is that adhesive might tend to bond the rubber gasket solidly to the metal and those two need to be able to move aseach expands and contracts with temp changes! Different amounts of movement may mean any adhesive is quicky pulled loose?
But whaen faced with not knowing where and what is going on, would it be practical to use some cheap and easy test? If one susp[ects the water is coming in at the top of a window panel with this form of rubber gasket, what about running a thin putty knife under to pry the rubber up enough to add a strip of silicone all across the top? When the rubber flaps back down, it should make a pretty solid seal along the top edge that we might let set up annd then spray water along the top to see if it actually gets in or if sealing solves the problem for long enough for us to try it for a while?
If the new windshield temp seal stops the water we might then know where the problem but if we still have a leak, we know to look at other places?
Or maybe a less difficult test might be done with just spraying a good solid sheet of water on to see if things get wet inside?
Any chance of dropping by a glass shop who does windshields and finding a friendly sort who would show you what they know about putting that seal on? Guys that have confidence in what they do, test to share cause they know they are better at what they do!
I find leak chasing to be one of the most maddening things I have done!

 

[markhbike]

Likely it the steel frame around the windshield is rusted. I had to have both the left and right glass frames repaired for the same behavior at different times on our 2007 Journey. It’s a common problem with Winnebagos. There is a standard rust repair kit the windshield company can get to stop future rust. If it’s too bad it might need some welding. If this it it, be prepared to buy a new windshield pane as they oftem break in the process of removing them to get to the rusted area.

 

[ExitStrategy]

My 2007 Journey had never leaked till this morning. We were in some pretty heavy rain this morning before leaving MI for MN. There was a nice puddle of water on the dash about 18" right of the left most edge of the drivers side window (two section windshield). The drips were coming off the inside windshield trim.

I had a local shop, inspect and re-seal the roof as needed last fall. Much to my chagrin they used Eternabond at the lap of the front cap to the roof. I hate that crap, and I told them to no avail. Anyway there should be no leak at the cap, I hope.

The rubber molding has never, in my opinion been installed correct. It is loose and is not securely fastened to the perimeter of the windshield.

I plan to give it a thorough inspection, when I get to ND to see if I can see any gaps in the sealant. I can get some sealant but what should i be looking for? Can someone explain to me how the rubber molding is supposed to be attached? Is it wedged in the void between the metal and the glass, or is it held in place by the sealant, or another glue type material?

I can check the marker lights and to be honest it would be easy enough to put some sealant around them, I think, or is it best to remove them and start over with sealant? What type sealant is recommended?

There is a thread all about the leaking windshield issue for rigs of your vintage. Google: "Winnebago Caused Rust". It relates to rust at the top frame and lower L brackets that hold the glass. The brackets were left as raw steel and the top rail was etched through the paint by the factory to locate the two windshields. The result over time, regardless of climate, was rust that bubbles formed, lifted (or cracked) the glass and allowed leaks. Lift the black molding off and check. Some have had to have the entire windshield frames replaced. Good luck.

 

[tim myers]

In post 5 I think I have eliminated the actual windshield from leaking, seams to be more likely the clearance lights or the front cap to roof connection.

 

[tim myers]

We are in St Peters, MO tonight and there was a mobile tech giving owners training across from our site. Talked to her and she is going to throw a ladder up to look at teh area over the drivers station,

I had another thought beyond the clearance lights and front cap roof connection, The PO had installed a Sirius XM system which I removed, but I left the antenna attached to the roof. That antenna would have required a hole.That is another suspect thing to look at. I will report if we find anything.

 

[tim myers]

well I need to recant what I said in post 14 it is definitely the windshield. there was a mobile RV tech here in MO. With a proper height ladder used the hose to put water in various locations and when we got to the windshield it leaked immediately. Had them throw some caulk in there as a temporary measure.

I called my insurance company and they will replace the windshields for $0 deductable, however the only real damage is a couple chips which a repair company will likely just repair with an injection.

I contacted one company last week and haven't heard from them yet, who have some of you used for your windshield replacements?

 

[tim myers]

Quote came in to r and r both windows for about $4500. If I talk to my insurance company and approach it from the fact that it is leaking they may pay for the R&R, but not sure what to do if a glass company removes the windshields and find the rust what is the next step. I can see a glass company saying nope we won't fix the frame you need to find someone else but at that point the windows are out and it would be difficult to drive it somewhere without a windshield. I may be making this worse than it will be,