Rear bedroom slide leak on my 2015 DX3 37BHHD

[Webefine]

Nice KTMs and plated! 👍

[murraym]

Originally Posted by Webefine

Nice KTMs and plated! 👍

Thanks. I’m trying to get all of this project done ASAP so I can take the bikes and XP4 to an off-road park in Indiana in the next couple of weeks to get the riding skills back on point before our trip to Colorado and MOAB at the end of June first week of July.

[Webefine]

Awesome, I ride a Sherco 510 that I have a plate on. I have ridden western Colorado and Moab 3 times and can't wait for for the next. I will be in Silverton Co. the week of July 16, will have the SxS and the VStrom.

[murraym]

Time to play catchup. So on the 28th, I let the home made linear dryer nozzles do their thing along with the fan blowing positive pressure through the plastic cover I used gorilla tape to enclose. That worked really well. On the inside of the coach at the far left and for right side of the luann, above the slide that I didn't rip out due to there being a natural break in the wood, it was wet, however 2 days of drying really dried it out well. The wood wasn't dark anymore at the edges. I then used a scraper, an oscillating sander, and adhesive remover to remove the glue from remaining the joint edges as well as from the aluminum framing that the old luann was bonded to.

I then made a special tool to clean the slide seal c-channel. 1" wide aluminum bar 1/8" stock by 12" long, then put a 45 degree bend in one side. By dousing the lint free cloth in adhesive remover, I folded the cloth over the 45 degree bend and inserted it into the c-channel and worked it back and forth from one end of the seal to the other. I made sure that every time I inserted it, to change the cloth to a clean spot so that I wasn't just swiping dirt back and forth. I did this until the cloth came up clean.

These lint free towels are not cheap, but they are not expensive either. So when one was dirty enough, I jus throw them away. Here is the reasoning. You are dissolving butyl tape and other adhesives into the towels. Yes, you can wash these towels, but do you really want this crap in your washer and dryer? Not really. I tried cleaning one by hand in the deep sink. It just smeared the dissolved butyl tape around. You would literally have to use a bucket of mineral spirits to wash and rinse them out before even thinking of using water and soap. So just trash them once they are used up. Trust me. And you can't use paper towels. They just tear and stick to the surface that you are trying to clean the adhesive and butyl tape goo off of.
This is working the tool from a ladder.


This is sitting on the roof looking down and working the tool and towel left and right. It was actually easier to do it this way instead of from the ladder.
Have the slide out about a foot.

Now. One thing I would change for sure is that I would not have shoved desiccant packs into the c-channel as it bowed them out deforming them a little which played hell to try to get them back to original with the sealant that I used later on. (post 53)
I did end of going and buying a large set of pipe vice grips from menards which worked a lot better than my welding clamps to hold the topper roller.


Now, once the c-channel to gelcoat surfaces that touched each other were clean, and this is where the water was getting in as there was no sealant to speak of preventing the water from running down into the c-channel in between the gel coat outer wall and the c-channel surfacer, I had to devise a way to push the c-channel outer D-cell against the gel coat so as to not squish the Proflex sealant out onto the D-cell seal and essentially glue the D-cell to the outer slide facia that compresses against it. So I cut a 2x4 linear to the height of the lower half of the D-cell. So that when I closed the slide, the compression facia would push the 2x4 against the D-cell without that facia actually making contact with the D-cell. I used some furring strips to build up against it in order to support it since the wall is curved inward.


I then opened the slide about a foot and began to run a thick bead of Geocel Proflex down inside and between the outer wall gel coat and the c-channel. Once I had a sufficient amount of sealant, (OVERKILL) amount, I then closed the slide against the wood supports.
Now this worked really well except that the slide facia began to cant the bottom of the 2x4 under the c-channel. This then caused the spots where I previously shoved the desiccants into, to bow/flare out and the Proflex to not seal properly.

So, I took the furring strips and erected a pirate ship.
This worked a lot better as the weight of the 8' long furring strips created a fulcrum against the base 2x4 and pushed the D-cell up at an angle and forced the 2x4 against the D-cell at the right spot.


I then went to the spots where I regrettably shoved the descant packets and inserted shims to push the D-cell a little further in to account for the bowed c-channel.

Once the c-channel D-cell was flush and flat against the gel coat outer wall. I called it a night.

[murraym]

The next day, moving to the outside, using a #2 phillips on my driver, I removed the 43 #8 self drilling 1" screws from the slide topper rail that was screwed into the fiberglass roof section just above the roof to gel coat wall transition piece.

I then slowly and CAREFULLY inserted a plastic scraper tool in between the roof and topper rail prying it away from the roof being careful not to crack or damage the fiberglass roof. The butyl tape was on there pretty good so it took a few minutes to work my way down the 14' slide.


Once I separated the rail from the roof, I used the same tool to scrape the old butyl tape off. I then used mineral spirits on the same lint free cloths and I used plenty of it. The more the better it dissolves that stuff. Once you get it all off, throw the towel away and get a new one to do a final clean on the rail with the mineral spirits.


I then used new cloths to clean the roof surface where the rail was installed as well as used the same red scraper to scrape the surface crack where the transition piece rubber cap and the roof meet. This is the white strip you see in the photos below the screw holes in the roof. I made sure to do the entire length of the coach front to back since I was going to reseal everything.

In this photo you can see where the screw that they used to screw down the topper piping was way too long and it over penetrated the rail and into the roof creating an unnecessary hole in the roof.

I then gave it another cleaning with a new towel and mineral spirits, and then began to tape up the joints in order to put on a nice bead of Proflex. This step is important as it will give you that professional look. I taped approximately 1/4" away from the center point that needed the sealant.
The way you hold the tape is important as it creates a straighter line. Roll the tape off of the roll with the adhesive backing still on the roll past the center point of the roll. This will keep the adhesive portion of the tape closer to the surface so you can just press the roll to the surface instead of dickering up the surface or the tape's adhesive with your fingers.

Keep going like this down the line.

[murraym]

You should tape everything at once. I used 3M exterior which is a plastic style tape and not the traditional paper backed tape. I will tell you this. This 3M exterior is a little more expensive but it is totally worth it. Have an exact knife or razor knife up with you so you can cut it as it stretches if you try to tear it like the traditional painters tape. You make a quick slice in it and you can give it a rip to tear it. I will only ever use this type for now on. It really sticks too.
I strongly recommend it.

Once you have everything tapes, you will need the following if working from a ladder like I did.
The Geocell Proflex skins pretty quick so you want everything ready to go. But, the best thing is that mineral spirits on anything that you are tooling the bead with will immediately slick it up again.
You will need a roll of paper towels.
Nitrile gloves on your hands, and a few more pairs in your pocket.
An exacto knife, the type where you slide the blade in. The plastic orange ones work perfectly.
You will need two tubes of the Proflex and a caulking gun.
You will need the jug of mineral spirits, and a clean int free cloth like the blue ones you see in my previous posts.

The first step is to set your ladder at one end of the coach, and make sure the entire line where the ladder is going to be is clear of any obstacles so you can keep it moving.
Douse the lint free cloth with mineral spirits so that it is really saturated.
(IF YOU HAVE A RUBBER ROOF, DON'T SET YOUR MINERAL SPIRITS CLOTH ON THE ROOF) If your roof is fiberglass, it doesn't matter.
Cut the tip of the Proflex tube off so the bead is smaller than a 1/4" in diameter.
pierce the tube, and run a 3/16" bead of Proflex along the top of the transition piece to roof.
pick up the saturated cloth, and get your rubber glove saturated with mineral spirits. Run your finger along the bead making a nice and smooth concave bead in between the tape you laid out. Immediately pull one paper towel off, and clean the sealant off the glove. Ball the paper towel up, and throw it to the ground as long as you are working on gravel. If you are on your nice concrete drive, have bucket attached to your ladder to toss it into.
saturate your nitrile glove with the mineral spirits again and swipe another length of bead away. Tear off another paper towel, and wipe the Proflex sealant off again. If the paper towel is sticking to the glove, then dab the paper towel agains the saturated cloth. The Proflex sealant refuses to stick to anything that is coated with mineral spirits. It's magic.


Once you get the professional looking bead rubbed out with your mineral spirits coated nitrile glove, and you can't reach any further, You will want to remove that section of tape. If you don't and you do the entire length of the coach, you will have string cheese Proflex pull up unless you pull the tape back on itself.


Not to worry though. If this happens, take the heavily saturated mineral spirits cloth and swipe the bead lightly which will wipe away the stringy mess and smooth it out. The Proflex will absolutely not stick to the cloth as long as it is saturated with mineral spirits.
My advise, and this is what I did when I did the driver's side to prevent the stringy mess. Once everything is properly prepped and taped. Set your ladder up at the start, run your bead, coat your gloves in the Mineral Spirits, swipe the bead, use the paper towel to clean the glove, drop the paper towel, swipe and swipe again with the MS coated glove, cleaning the glove with another paper towel until you have a nice bead on the section where the ladder allows you to reach. Then immediately pull the tape back on itself, cut it with the blade, and toss it to the ground. The only issue with this is that the tape wants to stick to the gloves. So pull the tape and roll it onto itself in a ball. Keeping in mind that the tape still has wet Proflex on it and the Proflex will get all over whatever the ball of tape touches. Then move the ladder down the line and repeat. What you get is a seriously professional bead of sealant.



Any imperfections or undesirable tape lines can be smoothed out by making a puffy ball out of the lint free cloth, pouring a dollop of MS on it, and swiping the bead until it looks perfect.

[murraym]

I did both sides of the coach in about 45 minutes. That is scraping the old sealant off, cleaning the surface with the adhesive solvent, cleaning the surface with mineral spirits, and then applying the sealant.

On the drivers side of the coach, by topper rail is screwed directly into the transition piece that connects the roof to the side wall. So, I scraped out any exposed squirted out butyl tape, and really cleaned the surface with MS.

[murraym]

Next, I installed the new 1" wide butyl tape to the slide topper rail and used my roller to ensure that it was pressed on well. I laid the rail on my ladder so that I wouldn't get any debris in between the the butyl tape and the rail.


I made sure that the butyl tape faced up until I applied it to the rail keeping it clean.

Then I laid it out on a flat surface and rolled it with my roller.

Then I had my wife hold one end from the ladder while I was on the roof laying on my stomach. We aligned the old screw holes and I partially screwed in the 43 individual brand spanking new stainless steel #8 1" screws into a few holes at each end and the middle to keep it in place. I only screwed them in half way. Once I knew everything was aligned and ready, I screwed in some screws similar to the way you would tighten a rim down on with the lugnuts. I kept going back and forth to ensure that the rail would tighten down evenly. Once everything was tightened down, you could see the excess butyl tape squirting out the top and bottom. The bead of Proflex mixed really well with the butyl tape and that mofo isn't ever going to leak.

Now, Stainless steel doesn't have the best tensile strength as compared to the self drilling steel screws they originally used. However, there are 43 of them equally spaced about every 5" and the topper spring tension doesn't pull on them to hard when the slide is out. There is virtually no tension on them when the slide is in. They went in firmly and I used a really nice torqued cordless driver to ensure that they weren't overtightened which will start popping screw heads off.



The picture inverted for some reason when I uploaded it, but you can see where the butyl tape and Proflex are being forced out together making a nice seal.

[murraym]

Next I went inside and cut out a cardboard template with scissors of the bedroom to bunkhouse dividing wall.




I then transferred that cardboard template to a 1/4" luann test template.

I used the rotozip to cut it out.


I then cut my 4.5" tall luann panel replacement pieces and then cut them to length to fit in between the existing wall panel that was remaining.
The overall measurement of the height of the C-Channel to the ceiling cove was 4.75" I cut mine at 4.5" to leave a 1/4" of space above the base of the C-Channel so that the wood would never contact the C-channel if there was ever water intrusion again.
I test fit the wood template.

After a few test fits and adjustments, I transferred my template to my finished length piece and installed it to do a final test fit of the two wall boards.


Noticing that the portion to the left of the dividing wall was a little low, I adjusted the template cutout to compensate.
Getting that 8' long wallboard in behind the C-Channel without scraping or damaging the ceiling was a little of a pain in the ass. But after about 10 minutes of working it in, it all lined up. Once everything was good to go and fit properly, I pulled the luann pieces out. They slipped right out in seconds, unlike the 10 minutes it took to slowly work them in.

[murraym]

This is the left 4' wide piece right over the left forward side of the bunkhouse slide where it butts up against the original luann wall. It appears as though the darker original wood is raised above the new luann but that is just an illusion.

[murraym]

I then brought both pieces in to prep for the contact paper install the next day. I coated the entire surface of the boards with Helmsman Clear Satin Spar Urethane. Making sure to really soak it in on the edges where it is pressed behind the C-Channel.





I then went back inside and final prepped and cleaned the aluminum surface as well as behind the C-Channel slide seal.


Tomorrow, I will apply the new contact paper that BCLEMENS sent me to the urethane sealed luann wall pieces, and install the new wall pieces using the liquid nails.

[halla]

Wow great write up, and you are fixing it quickly. Nice job.

[CaptnJohn]

Very impressed! In my MUCH younger days I may have gone for such a project. No one, no dealer, not the factory, would / could do the job as well. Great documentation to show how it should be done. Extremely interesting!

[AWF1945]

Looks good. Is there water damage to the floor due to intrusion?

[caseymyers]

I agree with the above, great job and great write up, you should do this for a living! I think Clemons is hiring.

[FleckDreher]

Good job.
Excellent documentation.

[murraym]

Originally Posted by CaptnJohn

Very impressed! In my MUCH younger days I may have gone for such a project. No one, no dealer, not the factory, would / could do the job as well. Great documentation to show how it should be done. Extremely interesting!

There is indeed water that puddled and then moved along on the floor in the passenger side corner of the bedroom. However, it is under the carpet, and only about 6" away from the wall in both directions near the slide pulleys behind the slide right vertical facia. The water ran onto the carpet, onto the wood, then past the wood and didn't really ever sit there for very long. As soon as I noticed it, I hit it with the drying floor fan. So, as far as mold, since it is open to the air a lot better than the wall luann was when it just marinated in the C-Channel water, it didn't get a real chance before I dried it out. I am still going to pull a few of the carpet staples up in the corner just to verify that it isn't too bad. But the good news is that it is carpet and not hardwood flooring. It can be cleaned up and watched.

[murraym]

Today, I cut out the proper length of the contact paper that BCLEMENS provided. I cut it an extra 1/4" past the edges lengthwise. The urethane that I coated the wallboards with last night were ready to go.


I laid the contact paper on the board and ensured that it was going to cover the entire board.

I then peeled the contact paper back off of the backing paper by about 10".

I then cut about 6" off the backing paper then folded the backing paper up under the contact paper to pull the backing off as I went making sure there were no kinks.


Make sure that you press and swipe the contact paper against the board to ensure there are no kinks or air bubbles.



Use a new razor to trip the contact paper off of the board sliding the razor at an angle to push the paper against the board while cutting. Also, make sure that you don't slice off the coating of the urethane from the board edge that will help prevent wicking of any potential future water intrusion.



Trim the edges of the cutout from the template so that the paper can be folded over the edges of the wood to look cleaner.

[murraym]

Once you have the contact paper trimmed neatly to the board, lay the board on a flat level surface and roll it out to get any bubbles, or kinks out, and to ensure that it is adhered nicely to the board. I rolled it lengthwise as well as at opposing 45 degree angles on the entire board.


My mastic trowel was too wide for the small space I would need to spread the liquid nails onto. So I made a custom small one out of flexible putty knives. 2" and a 4".
G]


Just clamp the plastic putty knife to your trowel, and use a new razor to cut out the notches. I rocked the razor back and forth until it bottomed out on the bottom valley.




Once you have all of the left sides of the wedges cut by rocking the razor back and forth and pushing downward, the right side can be simply pushed downward to clip off the remaining material.
Make sure you go back and trim it up to be consistent.

[murraym]

Next, take the time to properly prep the surface that the new wallboard will be adhered to. I final wiped mine down with a new lint free cloth and acetone.
I then took the time to tape everything off as well as install plastic because liquid nails is not something that you want to get on the carpet, bunk curtains, or bunks.


I made sure to tape up the ceiling as well and the ceiling trip pieces as the test fitting of the board was pushing against them and I didn't want to tear anything.



Also, go through the process in your head and make sure that you have everything that you need as you don't want to have to go track it down while the liquid nails is skinning up.





This is an extra step that I took since it was such a pain in the ass an took over 10 minutes just to get the board in last night when I was test fitting it. You can use any type of rubber lubricant. I used Nomar tire lubricant because it is waterless, cleans up easily, and takes very very very little to slick things up. I put dabs of it on my finger and rubbed it onto the back of the slide seal c-channel where the wood had an issue being pushed past to install the board.


I then rubbed it onto the tape at the ceiling where the wood also pressed against and was difficult to get the board into final position.

I then used my roller to roll the back of the seal against the aluminum frame so that some of the lubricant would coat the aluminum to help the board to be pushed down behind the c-channel.