Exterior Trim Delamination

[Aweese2]

Thanks...I think NIRVC recently opened a dealership in Surprise AZ.....close to Phoenix

They have been open for several years in the Phoenix area and yes they recently moved into a new facility in Suprise. However, since Desert Autoplex is the area Newmar dealer they don't do warranty work. I have used them for non warranty work and they are excellent to work with.

 

[BGMAC]

True, but the folks that fixed our coach delamination problem were of the opinion that using just adhesive (which includes epoxy) at critical stress points is just asking for trouble. The body shop foreman told me "we fixed it the way it should have been done in the first place." He's had more experience with that than I have, so I took his word for it.

the epoxy is just to adhere the fiberglass exterior to the in many cases the thin plywood backing. It is not intended to withstand any real stress.. usually delimitation occurs in the backing material due to water damage or something like that. If the epoxy is put on correctly and no damage to the back material and you had excessive stress you would see cracks instead of delimitation. I’ve had those to in the past at the corners of a slide out on a 5th wheel. There was a week spot in the design of the wall structure. In that case I designed a metal plate that I put on after repairing the crack. using countersunk screws, the fiberglass bonds, painting it looked just like the trailer was made that way and never had a problem.

 

[Kevin D Pem]

the epoxy is just to adhere the fiberglass exterior to the in many cases the thin plywood backing. It is not intended to withstand any real stress.. usually delimitation occurs in the backing material due to water damage or something like that. If the epoxy is put on correctly and no damage to the back material and you had excessive stress you would see cracks instead of delimitation. I’ve had those to in the past at the corners of a slide out on a 5th wheel. There was a week spot in the design of the wall structure. In that case I designed a metal plate that I put on after repairing the crack. using countersunk screws, the fiberglass bonds, painting it looked just like the trailer was made that way and never had a problem.

I can agree that the thin plywood is what is de-laminating. On my Adventurer I needed an access port to repair something so I cut out the delamination to accomplish the job, and put a door in it's place.

Before I chose to do that I concocted a scheme to repair the bubble I had. However unsure how the foam would react to the epoxy I kept putting it off. My plan was to use vacuum to suck epoxy into the bubbled area and my thoughts were the foam might just melt so didn't do it.