Community Forums

shaggy acres · 04-25-2016, 08:53 PM

Hi folks, new to the forum but know what I do and what I do not know!

I will have lots of questions I am sure but just getting started and I can see there are knowledgable people on here.

The bunk is rotted out pretty bad and I have just removed a few things. Is it common to have the deck just over 8' ? Looks like 99 inches.

Everything else they have done is so cheap I find I hard to believe they would use special order materials that would cost more.

Thanks

wblynch · 04-27-2016, 09:46 PM

There have been some great over cab rebuilds here. I haven't had to do it myself but I would say watch the weight. It would be easy to get out of control trying to make things stronger and add two hundred pounds without realizing it.

wblynch · 04-27-2016, 09:47 PM

Oh yeah, welcome to the forum!

shaggy acres · 04-28-2016, 05:41 PM

Hi, thank you, very wise indeed. Looks like the first 34" or so is an inch thick and full width of the rig, they did put a piece On one side of the 8' to make the width correct. That piece has the arc cut in it for egress from the driver area. Since it is pieced 8' I plan to sandwich two 1/2" pieces offset to better manage the seam and increase strength. I will use pressure treated plywood for that. That should match the original weight. The under side I plan to re laminate the Filon. I have built several laminate counter tops and the procedure should be the same. The front of the bunk is a poorly designed web of 2x4's w foam. The 2x4's were not even screwed to anything so in my rebuild Inplan to pocket screw them with exterior decking screws so they will not rot in the future.

There are several posts here for rebuilds but all older units. They have given me a great understanding of the process. This rig does have an aluminum frame making the P shape of the cab over but the wood was all wet and parts rotted. We have only owned it for 1 camping season and you can see where a moron tried to stop the leak before we bought it but I would guess that was at a dealer.

Ttfn

Mich F · 04-28-2016, 09:31 PM

If you're seeing 2 x 4s, it sounds like someone has tried a repair before you. I don't believe there were 2 x 4s used when first built. I'm also not sure that pressure treated wood is the right choice. The chemicals used in it are not as toxic as they were in the past, but I believe it's corrosive to steel and aluminum.

shaggy acres · 04-29-2016, 04:41 AM

That is why you all rock!

I thought they were 2x4 cut down but it does look like a 1x3 and a 1x 4 that made up that frame. I was not aware of the corrosion factor of the PT lumber so I will research that.

Pulled off the passenger side molding around the P shape last night. The Filon has also delaminated back to the window. Not sure how I can fix that correctly since the panel is one piece all along the rig. Slept on it, didn't help

Mich F · 04-29-2016, 07:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shaggy acres

That is why you all rock!

I thought they were 2x4 cut down but it does look like a 1x3 and a 1x 4 that made up that frame. I was not aware of the corrosion factor of the PT lumber so I will research that.

Pulled off the passenger side molding around the P shape last night. The Filon has also delaminated back to the window. Not sure how I can fix that correctly since the panel is one piece all along the rig. Slept on it, didn't help

It might be too late, but if you are careful enough and lucky enough, you can peel the filon back, clean it up and reuse it after the rebuild.
The last cabover rebuild my son did (which happened to be on a MH I had bought to repair and sell) we managed to salvage the original filon on both sides. We cleaned up the front piece, but we (I

) made a few holes in it while getting rid of the bad/rotted sections. We put it back up, but had to add a new piece of filon over it. My daughter made a couple of vinyl decals fo it so it looks fine. She actually made a number of decals for the MH.which I think added a lot to the looks.

wblynch · 04-29-2016, 08:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shaggy acres

...slept on it, didn't help

LOL.

shaggy acres · 04-30-2016, 06:43 AM

Made more progress. About 12 man hours in so far and I have removed the bunk board. Important note! The rocket scientist who designed this put one 3" long screw down from the top of the bunk board into the corner on each side of the rig. They put the screw in before the side was attached so there is no way to remove it without removing the P shaped wall on the rig. About 50 screws up from the bottom no problem one on each side screwed in from the top will add about 2 hours unnecessarily to your project. I may need to drive to Indiana just to smack someone in the side of the head.

I have been very careful to not damage the Filon but on the bottom of the bunk board I did rip it about 6" on one side. I have no helper and when the bunk board was removed it weighed about 120 lbs saturated with water and one corner crashed to the ground when I was trying not to dent the hood of the rig. Fortunately the center of it was not rotted to the point of cracking in half.

Talk about keeping the rebuild light. That thing filled with water had to add hundreds of pounds to the bunk area. Originally I wanted to dry it and seal it back up but this thing would have never dried out without ripping it apart anyhow.

I have pictures so I will try to get them off my phone and into here.

shaggy acres · 04-30-2016, 04:39 PM

Amazing the amount of destruction hidden inside. It did n't look that bad when I started!

Mich F · 04-30-2016, 05:17 PM

I have very similar pics from my 31C and other cabovers my son has rebuilt.

I'd suggest, if you haven't thought of it already that you try to clean and salvage at least that scribed foam piece in the front wall. It will make things a lot easier getting that radius back on the rebuild.

shaggy acres · 04-30-2016, 06:05 PM

That is as far as I hope to remove that piece. That foam is still saturated for the first 6 inches so it is just hanging there drying. The top does not seem to need to be removed. I will build a jig to re sandwich some 2.5mm plywood on the un laminated part at the bottom. Still not sure if I use West epoxy or contact cement like a counter top on that.

This is a pic of that damn screw they hid under the aluminum frame. Fortunately that did not damage the Filon but it was pure luck.

Going to spend the evening just cleaning all the edges on that piece that wraps around. My plan is to Durabond all of the seams once it is re assembled then re attach the molding.

I saw a video of them re laminating the side walls with epoxy so i plan on doing that as well once i rebuild the bunk.

Sound correct so far?

shaggy acres · 05-01-2016, 07:51 AM

Eternabond that is. Sheet rocking days coming out there for a bit!

Mich F · 05-02-2016, 10:32 AM

We had to totally remove the front wall on mine because it was pretty much all bad. My son removes all traces of wood on the filon, before reinstalling them, and uses a glue called Stabond