Rooftop a/c shroud

[MikeandJan]

About 15 minutes after we got parked in Midland, SD, we had the strongest thunderstorm I've ever seen. I've lived in Texas, Florida, South Carolina, South America and other places that have real thunderstorms but this one was a prize winner. My guess is the winds were over 75 MPH - coming from a retired pilot. The shroud from our forward rooftop a/c blew off and is pretty broken up. The a/c vent leaked a bit but was manageable. My question is whether I can drive without damaging the a/c unit until we find a mobile or fixed base repair shop to take care of it.

[Mr_D]

Duct tape to hold the old shroud together and in place?Maybe even a storage container upside down over the unit? I don't think I'd go very far without something over it, the fins are pretty fragile.

[CountryFit]

when i got our coach the first time, the a/c shroud was broken from top to side. i took it out and fixed/patched it up with fiberglass. it made it stronger and now i am still using the same one.

but if yours is non-repairable, just order a new one and put it on (held by 4 screws on mine). in a good day, you can drive it while it is open, i don't see any damage to it but you might feel air coming down.

[barmcd]

Unknown to us we had a broken A/C shroud on a travel trailer many years ago. Finally it let loose and I drove it about 2000 home miles without the shroud. Unless something solid hits it, there should be no real damage to the unit. There were some bugs in the coils and a few of the coils were bent, but I straightened them out. I'm sure a bent coil causes some loss of efficiency, but probably not enough to worry about.