[77newell]

I noticed that my entry door has significant delamination of the skin of the door. I'm about to work my way into it and see if I can make a full repair here on my campsite in Florida or just do a temporary repair to get me home to Michigan without the skin taking a flier. I will document the situation and the process I use as I go along and will share it on this thread, pictures included to save words.

As a first step I want to pull off the inside skin of the door. Can any of you advise me how deal with the door latch mechanism so that I can get the inside skin removed.

Many thanks to Richard Entrekin for helping me think through the process to this point. I was really bummed by the delamination and he talked me back to my rational self so now I can get on with it.

[prairieschooner]

Curious, How does the Door Gasket look? Do you have a Rain Gutter over that door?
I saw something similar on a '94 once and the door gasket showed the point of water intrusion, the '94 didn't have a very good Gutter over the entry door.
Here is a link to a product that could be very helpful with repairing soft wood. You can mix the epoxy and thin it with Denatured Alcohol to make a penetrating Epoxy.
http://www.westsystem.com/ss/

[larryweikartsr]

When my exterior skin began to delaminate, I carefully pried it open and squirted some gorilla glue inside and spread it with a thin putty knife. Then I clamped it and let it dry. This was quite a while ago and it has been holding very well. I'll be interested in your process. ( I'm in Michigan also)

[77newell]

Hey guys: thanks for your perspectives, I'll respond to each below.My real question right now is what do I have to do with the door handle and trim around it so that I can remove the interior door panel. I've removed the screws that hold the trim cover around the door handle and yet nothing budges, I must be missing something and I don't want to break anything unnecessarily.

Steve: the delamination is the exterior skin pulling away from the aluminum channels that make up the framing of the door. For whatever reason the two sided 3M tape used to originally attach the skin to the frame is separating from one side or the other of the bond. Thanks for the heads up on WEST system epoxy, I've spent a lot of time with the stuff on a wood sailboat I used to own and my kids claimed I could fix anything with the stuff. It fixed just about everything except my marriage, that's how flexible their stuff is. If I were home I very might well make a withdrawal from my WEST stocks in service of the repair.

Larry: Thank goodness I'm not in Michigan at the moment, and for lots of past moments this winter. The bond on the door to the skin along the hinge side is blocked by the hinge standing proud to the door. There are two ways to get at this bond, either remove the door from the hinge and work from the outside, or leave the door attached to the hinge and remove the interior panel covering of the door and work from the inside. I was thinking I would like to keep the door on the hinge if possible so removing the interior panel is necessary to do the repair. My plan is to gradually work my way into this project until it is clear what ultimate approach will work best. I will post all that I do. I thought getting the interior panel off would be easy, but how to get if off remains a mystery to me. If getting the interior panel off is too demanding I'll just work from the outside and have to remove the door.

Question Larry: how long did you leave the clamps on before the door was again useable? I would like to minimize the time the door is completely out of service since we are in a campground that frowns on repairs being done on the site.

[larryweikartsr]

It has been some time since I did this and we were at a race, so time was of little concern. As I recall, I did it in the am and took them off before evening, I'm guessing around 4-6 hrs. My door was only delaminating by the handle and lock so I didn't have to deal with the hinge. GL and please post the procedure for future info. I just returned from Fl. wish I was still there and could lend some assistance. Good Luck

[77newell]

Larry: Thanks for the info, it may prove invaluable. Wish you were here, it would be great fun.

I called the factory this morning and gained the following information: my door, unlike the 90 coach door documented on the old site, is a structural aluminum sandwich of aluminum skins inside and out with extruded aluminum channels both on the perimeter and in the middle. both skins are attached with double sided tape. There is steel in the door behind the aluminum channel on the hinge side for anchoring the hinge screws into the door. I did not find out the answer to the question of how the interior door handle is attached - I'll find out later. The guy I talked with stated they now flush rivet the perimeters of the doors as the repair method.

Here is what I see and what I plan to do. I've described the extensive delamination of the exterior skin above, I also have some of the interior skin coming loose. I've ordered 36yds of 3M 4951 double sided tape - this is .040 thick, thinner than the .080 thick 4955 tape that Richard used in his repair and the thinner tape is at his recommendation. 4951 is recommended on the 3M website as the material of choice for assembling truck trailer bodies. I plan on scraping out the old tape on the top of the door for the outside skin and installing the new tape. If that seems too weak I'll then demount the door and do the rest of the loose hinge side. Once I have it holding well, I will drive home, wait for warmer weather and do a full repair. I will document as clearly as I can how I do it.

To be continued .....

[Richard]

Jon,

As you and I discussed, my composites guru buddy who was visiting stressed the importance of cleanliness of the surfaces and not touching the tape with anything. I think that is why I was unhappy with my door taping experience. It is entirely possible I contaminated the tape whilst trying to get it into the crack.

Just posting this tip for others working with the tape in the future. The advantage of the tape of is the almost contact cement nature of the bond. It should be instantaneous. Both the Sikaflex 552 and any decent epoxy have almost overnight cure times to achieve good strength.

[larryweikartsr]

Thanks for the additional information and the proper tape to use. I might also point out that Newell used tape on the lower trim piece on all my compartment doors as well as the square (about 3/4 inch square) trim piece where the sidewall aluminum panels meet the compartments. I've lost a couple of these while driving and was lucky enough that Newell still had replacements. You may want to check those areas from time to time.

[77newell]

Yup, I've got trim pieces starting to come loose. I've repaired one already and the other loose ones will get done this summer. The only question is do I pull up the good ones too and do them or wait until they start to come loose, but that is a question for later. It appears the the tape has about a 16-20 year life span on our coaches. I'm tentatively planning on doing the trim pieces that I can see no reason to ever remove with G-Flex epoxy, the ones that are potentially needing removal I will redo with tape.

[77newell]

It's been a hot day in Largo, FL, the perfect day for zen and the art of motorhome maintenance. I just spent a couple hours clearing the 2-sided tape from the top of my entry door. I found the best way to remove the tape was to use the blade of the utility knife to peel the tape away from the metal by pushing into the tape and then twisting the knife so its leading edge pulls away from the metal. I tried slicing the tape off and that didn't work nearly as well. I'll try to post pictures from my next attempt that will be at ground level, I just couldn't convince my wife to join me on the ladder so she could take pictures of what I was doing.

Once I cleared the tape it became obvious why the tape didn't hold. There was spray-in insulation, from the factory I presume, that had expanded enough to push the outside skin at least 1/4" away from the metal frame. My hands were incapable of pulling the joint together until I cut the insulation back several inches down into the door. Now I can squeeze the joint together by hand and I'm confident that the new tape I'm temporarily putting in will hold for my journey home. This is good news. The bad news is that I'll probably have to pull the skin off once I get home so that I can trim the foam back to where it works best before I completely repair the joining of edges.

Hopefully it is clear what is going on, if you have questions please feel free to ask.