Truck Camper Water Damage Repair | Stomping out Water Leaks | Remove Front Window | Fiberglassing 

Fiberglass seems intimidating until you take the plunge. Then it's one of those skills you wonder why you let it intimidate you. There are a number of rules of thumb that are somewhat easily picked up watching videos from authoritative people on YT. In particular, Fishbump TV and Boatworks Today are a couple I think teach good skills.

@@WorkingOnExploring Thank you, Steve, for the advice and support. I will take your advice, do some research on fiberglassing, review your previous comment responses, and plan for a project next winter. Now, it's time to do some local summer camping here in the southwest (NM). Happy camping and safe travels to you and Sheryl!

It would. I was repairing this to resell so there was going to be little advantage in my doing that vs expense and effort. The great asset of gelcoat is the ability to build up a 30 mil layer vs the 3 mils of exterior paint. The paint has probably adequate lifespan for the camper (it's a 2000 model year.) Gelcoat is also less tolerant with dust and application temperature.

It never made sense to me to have one there. We want to be able to sit up in bed as I believe most everyone would. Leaning on the window and window covering is just silly.

Great! Happy to help and participate in your camper's rebirth.

Sorry...we probably have a photo. When framing was placed in the prior window, I placed an 1/8" luan plywood oval on the inside of the cutout. There was obviously no wall paper on it and there was an uneven gap where the oval didn't exactly match up to the existing cutout and it didn't look good. Because we liked to lean against the wall where the window was when in bed, I simply took a piece of plywood wide enough to cover the flat spot on the front cap (obviously also larger than the old window) and covered it with a layer of bonded Dacron upholstery padding and wrapped it with upholstery fabric. I screwed it to the wall frame with 3 screws top and bottom, covering the heads with a gray plastic 'snap cap'. You're right I should have included shots of the inside.

The Ram board came from HD or Lowes, I don't recall. All I remember of the thickness was I bought as thick as I could get and still wished it was 50% more. I stapled it on with a 1/2" crown pneumatic upholstery stapler that just barely sinks the heads flush with the surface of the material. I didn't want to countersink it at all because it cuts the material rather than holding it. I did put some Titebond lll between the two layers I used. The resin is an unwaxed polyester laminating resin. About the most commonly available. Be careful buying polyester in retail stores as most of it is 'waxed'. The small amount of wax floats to the surface and creates an air barrier that is needed for the resin to fully harden but it interferes with adding additional layers of laminate which is often needed. If you use waxed resin and want to add more layers, you need to sand the surface to remove the wax first. The first layer of reinforcement is 1708. This is referred to as 'biaxial mat' and has 2 layers of 8.5oz (17 oz total) woven roving at 45 degrees and 1 layer of 8oz chopped strand mat on the back. Then all 3 layers are stitched together. That is what the '1708' description comes from. The strand is the inside surface but woven roving is very coarse so I added a layer of 6oz cloth on the outside to leave a smoother finish. You can go with lighter material such as 2oz or 4oz cloth. You have to be incremental in covering coarse reinforcement. There is a material called 'veil' which is about 1/2 oz and is very fine. Going from 1708 to veil would still transmit a lot of the roving coarseness. If you were wanting a superfine fiberglass, 1708 to 6oz to veil would work well. My 2 layers was more than strong enough and it had some unevenness that I needed to address with body putty and thickened resin so getting a super fine fiberglass finish wasn't going to matter that much. Veil is really something you'd use if you wanted to spray gelcoat on as a final layer. Gelcoat spraying is hard to do as it needs a special gun so I just used exterior paint and rolled it on.

@@WorkingOnExploring thank you so much for taking the time to reply. i saved this and will follow your instructions.

I wrote a nice long response a week ago and just discovered I failed to post it so here we go again. 1) When I shoot video, I do so as a combination of full motion and time lapse. I start with a full motion explanation (sometimes just for the editor) then switch to time lapse as fabrication takes a long time. Shooting in time lapse allows the files to be a lot smaller (easier to transfer, use and store) and the camera battery to last a lot longer. Transferring and storing big files is a very big problem. When you see a time lapse, that is how it was shot, not the editor converting it to a time lapse (although that can be done). In short, the long, detailed video of the whole process is never recorded. There is certainly cut 'scraps' cut from what is taken and what is used but they are not that much. I don't and won't have the detailed 'how-to' content you would like. Folks on YT shy away from long videos and most of mine are already very long. I often take some still photos that dont get used as well. If you want more detail, the best way is for us to engage in dialog either by email or phone and I can help you get what you want to know. 2) The aluminum skinning I conceived was to use a piece of 5'x8', 5052 aluminum about .040 or .032 thick. This can be found in either 'mill finish' or possibly pre-primed. I would anchor it loosely at the top and align it to the sides, (possibly with a little overhang to be trimmed off later). Once aligned, I put a couple clamps (vice grips) on the bottom edge and hook a ratchet strap from the vice grip to the jack legs and a center one under the camper to the back bumper to stretch it tightly. When tight and in position, anchor it across the top and evenly down both sides using screws through the J-molding. The problem is that the aluminum is not bent permanently where it goes over the curves. This can cause the aluminum to bubble in the center of the 'field'. The front window may have been used (more) to clamp the center of the (Filon) materiel to the frame more than its functionality as a window. Since I am omitting the window, this is the primary reason I did not use aluminum.

I omitted.....sheet aluminum can easily be obtained from any major industrial metal supplier in flat sheets up to 5'x10'. Anything lager only comes in a roll and would need to be a special order directly sourced from the manufacturer. Rolled aluminum also has the shortcoming of having some residual curve. On a curved front cap this is not a problem but on a flat side, it is.

Weight is always a problem but putting good material over bad doesnt last long. People also fail to find and diagnose the problem which simply guarantees that the bad result will recurr...seen it many times..

@@WorkingOnExploring after seeing the whole video where you did all the fiberglass work was pretty impressive. Yeah I'd love to find one like yours and do all the solar and upgrades like on my holiday rambler. This hobby I have with restoring and upgrades has given me more pleasure than any camping lol

@@matthewknight5641 that's why we are 'working on exploring' because we seem to do a lot more of the former and only when exhausted, do the latter...

The material I used was 'Ram board' from HD. Its intended as a floor protective covering. I think there may be several thicknesses but thicker is better. Catalysed polyester products that come in paste varieties are body filler and gelled resin. Gelled resin doesn't harden as fast which is why I chose it. You can thicken your resin by adding 'fumed silica' aka aerosil to polyester resin and doing so would be less expensive. It is available on eBay.

@@WorkingOnExploring thank you so much for replying so fast!

I'm not sure what method you are intending so I'll throw out some thoughts; 1) From your question, I assume you have an aluminum skin. Fiberglass can be saturated with several resin types. The most common, Polyester, does not adhere well to aluminum. Epoxy is better to use if you want to achieve better adhesion. I would not advocate relying on adhesive properties of a 'hard cure' adhesive for a flexible aluminum skin. 2) The window frame clamps the skin on the outside and the thin luan on the inside (likely also has some 1/4" crown staples), to the wood frame. If you remove that clamp, I think you have to replace the force it provides both inside and out. I imagine that an appropriate ring of small flat head screws, into the wood frame, on both sides would be needed (assuming the wood frame is in good condition to hold a screw). 3) With the window removed and perimeter skins resecured, a 'plug' could be fabricated and secured inside the (the rough opening is a rectangular with plastic corner radii stapled in the corners) rough opening. I imagine the plug made of wood products (3/4 lumber, insulation and thin plywood, like the camper frame) and secured to the window frame with pocket screws. 4) some kind of durable, weatherproof outer skin would need to be applied and sealed. The most cosmetic would be a piece of the same corrugated aluminum I assume your camper is covered with. Made slightly larger, its corrugations would overlap and coincide with the skin. It could be adhered with a flexible urethane adhesive caulk such as Sika 252 or Loctite 5700. Since the window was flat, the patch could be flat, not requiring more screws to hold it till the adhesive cured. I would use pressure around the perimeter of the bond to squeeze adhesive out (removing all that squeezed out) ensuring the patch cover was adhered all the way to the edge. With this method, I think you could avoid an external caulk sealing bead that would make the repair obvious. 5) Inside, a cosmetic overlapping cover layer is needed as well. Because I planned to lean on the wall where the window was, thin plywood wrapped with upholstery fabric was screwed into the old window frame as well.

@@WorkingOnExploring Thank you for the quick response and detailed information. It is very helpful. I'm tackling the project over the next couple weeks.

We've been overworking ourselves building a new shop/house/pool...just wrapped it for a couple months a week ago and Cheryl is working on a recap video that should be out in a couple of days.

Hope you caught the new video!

We are AWOL! We started the summer early in Idaho getting our 'last house' build going, then we got interrupted by a need to renovate my brother's house so it would sell so we spent 6 weeks in WY. Then back to ID to keep our build going (we are the general contractors, plumbers, electricians, roofers and HVAC). So...not really a single day 'off' this summer...and no time for fun rig adventures or projects! We miss us too and we may post a couple house videos or find some winter adventures to share. Check in with us on Instagram for more regular life and house posts.

It goes MUCH farther than that....I am a former plant engineer for Safari Motor Coaches...manufacturing techs tru really hard to do a good job but thr deck is stacked again st them. To begin with, caulk is a poor method to obtain a RELIABLE seal in the joints used in RV construction....as you correctly point out, small holes are inevitably produced, most as the caulk cures....many voids occur after the RV leaves the factory which cannot be detected by the most well intended inspection. The entire concept of accepting long seams that are only sealed with caulk and expecting owners to do a self inspection and periodic refresh is idiotic. It's almost an intentional failure to guarantee paid service work down the line. The industry claims lots of caulk is unavoidable (which is untrue). Customers contribute to the problem by wanting a whole bunch of exterior access doors which are prone to leak as well. If you look at my RV design, it is a complete fiberglass envelope, I side and out with NO external storage access for this very reason. The only place I rely on calik is around the windows. My own failure to complete the planned fiberglass coverage is where I went wrong.