I fixed my front and back walls - HW277 - deformed walls fixed

[jackgalloway]

Greetings -

I repaired my badly deformed front and back walls with 2x4 framing on my 2019 HW277 popup camper. I had posted my experience last October and the wall was out up to an inch displaced from the cabinets.

The wall failed because the wooden structural members that were designed by forest river were just too small - and placed up to 400 lbs of force on a very small 1.25" x 1.25" wood structural member with cutouts for the metal supports. I do have the factory drawings now. Forest River did not consider it a latent defect or warranty issue.

This took quite a few hours and required me to trim all parts of the bathroom enclosure. I also installed new wider corner molding on the camper for a improved waterproofing of the front end exterior.

I believe the solution will be permanent - I will post an update after a few trips. Let me know if you have any questions.

Jack

[Reverse_snowbird]

Looks like a nice job. Thanks for sharing.

[Campworthy]

Whoa!! that's drastic but sadly much needed. I have a few millimeters separation at the moment but see that type of repair in my future. Thank you for sharing your fix!

[jackgalloway]

here is the before image. it was a full inch displaced. the back wall also needed a repair. This repair was very necessary - the camper was pretty much unusable.

I bought it used so there was no warranty. I'd imagine the seller knew about this defect and it is probably why I had such a good price. I also contacted Forest River but they would not honor any repair. I do consider it a design defect.

I do have the factory front wall drawings if anybody wants them. The front wall is made of very light framing members and I would not be surprised if this happens to multiple campers. The repair took me about 50 hours of work. The framing goes thru the bottom metal frame and is attached to solid wood on the camper sides.

I had it on a big trip over the weekend and the fix did hold up. I will take it on a 2 week trip to the Black Hills, Yellowstone and Colorado National monument, and I can report afterwards.

[jackgalloway]

here are the drawings of the front wall. Also enclosed is what it generally looks like underneath - but not a HW277.

This really helped in planning out the repair and landing screws thru the 2x4s.