American Coach: Basement Rust Repair

[Maik]

Update on basement repair. Yes, I am still at it. Slow process with supply issues, family, work, winter and the dreaded previous restrictions.
Walls are all in floor being covered with SS. Plan to fasten floor to walls; has taken a turn. Decided to bolt up through to walls. Left section out of the bottom of the walls to accommodate the bolts. 84pcs of 3/8" SS bolts to hold it together. I feel better bolting it up than using teck screws.
Note- much difficulty in sourcing SS sheet and pricing has gone up 30%

[Meames1]

Great Job ! Coming along nicely. Yeah, I can imagine the difficulty getting materials, we deal with it daily. Keep it up !

[-Gonzo-]

WOW!! Can I get you to repair my 2004 Fleetwood revolution? It has a lot of the same problems yours has. I wish I had a shop to do 1/2 the work you did... I would be dreaming now in my life. I was discharged from the military with a bad back & that just got worse when I was driving tractor trailers around and had a wheel loader bucket slide off and almost squish me.
I got outa there with 7 broken ribs a bruised lung and more stuff messed up in my back more than before. That my friend knocked me into retirement immediately. (Can't drive a commercial vehicle on narcotics of any kind & I take them 2x a day since 2011).I was 48 years old then, way to early to be retired.. I can't say I can do the work as good as you but I am capable of a lot with the right tools.. Now I don't even own a welder.
I had to complement you on a job well done, I hope your other systems don't give you as much trouble as my RV has. I needed to put on a new roof A/C unit, 2 satellite dishes, a complete brake job, new shocks, new air filter. & the worst was spending $1500 in labor to chase a electrical problem all over the coach... I only got $25 in parts for all that $ (plus the tow to get it into Cummins)...

Nice seeing those pictures! Hope you have smooth sailing in your practically new motorhome!!!
-Scott A. Yates-

PS.. the info below is old.. I had a 5th wheel but got the motorhome about 3 years ago.

[-Gonzo-]

I bet if I tried to have a shop do all that work it would cost me $1000's of dollars! Any idea how much you have into the repair? (Both time & materials)?

Any idea at all on how much a shop would charge to do all that work??

[Maik]

Gonzo
At present I am looking to have approximately 11,000 (CDN) in materials into the rebuild. I did go the expensive route. All the steel was hot dipped galvanized after fabrication and stainless steel nut, bolt, screws and rivets. SS sheet for the back wall and the floor. I went with the large sheets to eliminate the joints in the floor (extra costs).
I would not be surprised that it would be a 30k+ to have a shop rebuild it.

[JES3]

I am contemplating taking on this repair on a 2002 Heritage we are looking to buy. I have read this complete article 3 times and believe I fully understand the process and scope of work. To those who have completed this repair I congratulate you on a major improvement to your coach. If you have completed this repair in full I ask, Would you do anything different if you were to do it again? Thanks in advance for any reply.

[Drewfab]

Originally Posted by JES3

I am contemplating taking on this repair on a 2002 Heritage we are looking to buy. I have read this complete article 3 times and believe I fully understand the process and scope of work. To those who have completed this repair I congratulate you on a major improvement to your coach. If you have completed this repair in full I ask, Would you do anything different if you were to do it again? Thanks in advance for any reply.

Depending how much of a deal you are getting, it was probably not with my time and money spent. I did all the work myself and it was a lot. I wouldn't do it again without a $25k + discount

[Meames1]

Originally Posted by JES3

I am contemplating taking on this repair on a 2002 Heritage we are looking to buy. I have read this complete article 3 times and believe I fully understand the process and scope of work. To those who have completed this repair I congratulate you on a major improvement to your coach. If you have completed this repair in full I ask, Would you do anything different if you were to do it again? Thanks in advance for any reply.

I would make some minor tweaks in how I did a few things, but nothing major. I wasted a bit of time thinking I could leave things like the black and grey tanks, propane tank, and furnaces in place. Lot's of straps bracing, etc, only realizing just take them all out and make it easier and roomier to work. Stuff like that, but for the most part I wouldn't change much. With that said, I'm in no hurry to do it again

[cry42]

Amazing work, great job, well done !

Early year Foretravel Coaches suffer from the same lower frame rust issue. I have seen quotes to replace the entire lower frame work, if required, from $25 to $30,000 dollars (US). One Foretravel owner replaced his lower frame in aluminum, had to have been a first.

[sailchessi]

Originally Posted by JES3

I am contemplating taking on this repair on a 2002 Heritage we are looking to buy. I have read this complete article 3 times and believe I fully understand the process and scope of work. I ask, Would you do anything different if you were to do it again? Thanks in advance for any reply.

I've been in on this thread for years.
I was and continued to be awed at the work done to save a RV.
I had a 2003 Newmar Dutch Star owned by an old man in Erie PA and bought it so cheap it was a deal I couldn't refuse.

Well, all the basement rails were rusting away, the skin underneath began peeling off and dragging, had to be bungee'd up or cut away. The wet bay had already collapsed and been shored up with marine plywood. The walls and roof were basically fine, the guy did take care of the roof, he just didn't wash the bottom after driving on salt and parking on salted lots. It needed a turbo, that turned into manifold and exhaust brake, $8400. Needed a sofa, put in theater seats. Needed new lighting, did some. One AC was out, no dash AC, air leaks, and so much more.

I'd spent about $12000 on my $12000 purchase and it still needed tens of thousands more and would STILL be sitting on a rusting out basement. I'm not a welder, I don't have a 60x60 warehouse space indoors to even attempt what was done in this thread. I'm super handy, I'm sure I could do it, would be great to learn to weld but ..... no way.

So, I cut my losses, got my money out of it. The next guy supposedly fixed some of it, but I kind of doubt it. He dressed it up, put a lot of money in it and sold it for double what I sold it to him for. Fourth owner seems happy, but there are a lot of lurking evils as it approaches 200K miles.

There are SO many RV's out there. If you work hard at it, you can find a very clean, rust free, great condition 15-20 year old RV from those "Decade of Excellence" years pre-DEF. I just don't understand why anyone would ever even think about buying a RV with any signs of water intrusion...EVER. I mean zero tolerance for any delamination. I've had cored boats, you don't know what is between the walls and it is rotting in there. Likewise, the other absolute non-starter for me is this very kind of basement rail rust.... or worse rust.

Both of these key faults are zeros. No way, do not buy. They are nothing but chainsaw and dumpster fodder. You'll never get them right. Why bother taking on someone else's poor maintenance, just think about that poorly handled engine and transmission and that $30K to $50K worth of fixes.

Don't do it. Move on. Find a clean one from CA or SW US or kept in a barn and never on salt in winter (good luck if in the Northern tier).

[Meames1]

Well, it's been over 3 years since I tackled the basement rust. Since then we have been out enjoying the RV and doing upgrades here and there.
One item left on the list was to re-paint the basement storage compartment doors. There was a gouge about 6' long on the right side that the previous owner put there. Along with that were many stone chips etc. The doors are solid aluminum and once you get a stone chip and moisture sets in the aluminum starts to corrode and causes the surrounding paint to bubble. There were several spots on these doors, mostly along the bottom edge.
So, this winter I decided to paint the lower part(s) of the coach. I'm painting everything from the belt line down.
After some searching I found the original paint supplier to be Sherwin Williams. I had to reach out to their corporate help line with the original paint codes and they were able to update them to current (and still available) codes. Unfortunately, the nearest Sherwin Williams Auto paint store is 2 1/2 hours away, but we drove up and had the paint mixed.
I started by disassembling the doors and beltline trim and prepping all the bad spots on the doors.
Then I built a paint booth inside my heated garage and started painting. I've got the base color and the first stripe color on three doors, I'll add the white and clear on these tonight and on to the next ones. Enjoy the pics!

I'm only doing 3 doors at a time, so I can be prepping the next batch while the paint is curing.

[Meames1]

Got the white on and cleared these 3. The clear looks more orange peel(y) in the pictures then it is, and these were right after spraying. They flowed-out really nice. Have a few specks of dirt here and there, I'll probably scuff and buff them. I did 3 heavy coats of the high solids clear, so plenty of thickness to level them off.

Before Clearcoat


After Clearcoat

[cwk]

Originally Posted by Meames1

Got the white on and cleared these 3. The clear looks more orange peel(y) in the pictures then it is, and these were right after spraying. They flowed-out really nice.

Looks great!

I've worked with a spray finish product in the past that look absolutely horrible after spraying, even a few hours after spraying. But, the next day the finish looked perfectly smooth and fantastic. The first time I used it turned into a lesson in patience.

Thanks for posting. I keep learning from reading here.

[Rob_M]

Meames can you detail how to take the beltline trim off? I need to address some rust around the wet bay on our ‘02 AT.

Awesome work btw. I’m a welder/machinist by trade.