Leaking roof vent

[Expanderoo]

And then of course I realized that opening was to put all the excess wire with the big wire taps out of the way. It seems oversized but it was also a hassle getting it all back together. I of course removed the pink insulation board so I had room.

I am making a mental note that those voids are there though as an area to void putting any weight on.

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I removed the leaking vent today. I noticed the caulk didn't quite make it around part of the metal corner piece on the vent so water could get in that way.

I also realized I made a big mistake: I painted the risers before assembling them. I should have assembled them first and then painted them. Well, I should have used a different glue -- Menards stocked a glue that didn't have the purple primer. I thought it might not be as good so I elected to go with the traditional purple primer + cement. But in hindsight, I would have saved myself a big hassle by researching that and ideally using a non-purple primer PVC glue/cement.

I spent some time cleaning off the mating surfaces including the molded wood grain in the top of the PVC riser. I then applied what seemed like an excessive amount of caulk and put it all back together again with a slightly better alignment (that had more overlap between the vent and the riser mating surfaces). I was surprised to find it was still not enough caulk in that it didn't ooze out all sides as much as I would have liked however it certainly seemed good enough. Time will tell. Well, the rain that should be coming Sunday and after will tell.

I also applied the 6" EternaBond tape to the front shell center seam. I removed the trim, cleaned off the caulk and trim glue residue. Then cleaned off the caulk globbed on the front of the air conditioner riser. Then applied EternaBond primer and got the tape on. I threw caution to the wind and didn't use a guiding piece of painters tape. Let's just say next time I would go with the guiding tape. But it came out pretty good. And the primer actually made it easier to correct a mistake (I found part of the backing stopped peeling off so I had to backtrack and normally the tape doesn't come off the surface but it came off of the primed surface -- which does make me pause to think about how exactly this primer works and/or if it works but... it was an interesting exerience).

Then I started on the antenna caulking. I found the plastic cap that must be the one that is removed to oil the mechanism. So I'll go about that -- I'm thinking white lithium grease but I haven't peered inside yet to get a feel for what is going on in there. Something more fluid might be required. While removing the caulk, I had the feeling the factory really globbed it on the whole mount foot and then screwed it together. So tomorrow I'll take a closer look although I really should test the antenna as I've read about the whole connector issue at the foot and I'd hate to seal it all back up again if it's failed (even though I have no plans on using it).

[Expanderoo]

In summary, I did the following things:

1) redid from the roof up the mounting of the two regular vents and the vent with the fan in it (and then redid one where I didn't use enough caulk at the top vent -- but not a big deal as only from riser up)
2) Ran EternaBond 6" tape from the front of the air conditioning riser to the top of the front window rock guard frame
3) Ran EternaBond 6" tape from the bag seal to the top of the rear window rock guard frame (there is a running light right in the center -- I was thankful for the 6" wide tape as I just took it off, ran the tape over the bulb holder and then cut around it and reattached the light)
4) Redid the caulking around the antenna, took out each screw and caulked each one, and then shot some light oil (happened to have a can of engine fogging oil) into the antenna via the top plastic cap

I also removed the awning and did some caulking there along with learning how the roof drains (by removing the cap on the front shell at rear on awning side -- if you remove that and look inside, you can see how many layers are used for the bag seal along with how the roof top curves into a drainage channel).

In conclusion, I pondered that there should be a "zen and the life of caulking a TrainManor" as it appeared previous owners caulked by intuition rather than reason which I can understand but it makes it confusing coming along much later. It was a fair amount of work however I think I have the skills now to fix leaks on the road along with the materials and tools. Hopefully, we should be without leaks for a while though!

My next purchase is going to be a rivnut-type tool so I can more securely fasten things to the aluminum surfaces as some screw holes are tired and worn out (ie those mounting the internal table and the front awning foot bracket). I noticed Harbor Freight has one although unfortunately they don't have extra rivnuts. But the tool comes with a variety of sizes in aluminum and hopefully I can use that to figure out which sizes I need more of (and order them online).

[Expanderoo]

One thing I forgot -- applying the 6" EternaBond in a straight line while on top of the roof is difficult. The first time, I struggled having a straight line while applying it from one side (front shell). The next time on the rear shell, I used painters tape to have a guide line and this worked well however randomly the backing plastic failed to come off in one piece -- while attempting to fix that, I ended up off line at the critical spot where I was going through the rubber molding on top of the shell that the front bag seal rests on when the roof is closed. So I have some ugly surface imperfections at that spot however it should still be perfectly functional and at least it'll be up in the air out of sight most of the time!

I'll go take some photos but what I'm trying to convey is that the advice to work with two people to do this or go very slow and take your time is spot on. I am definitely seeking function over form so I can live with imperfections but I still try to make things look nice.

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Front shell:







Forgive the dirty roof -- I didn't want to get the surface wet while working on some other areas (so I cleaned along the center seam). So it didn't get washed like the rear shell roof did. But it's on the list of things to do.

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Rear shell:



(I've been working on loosening up the thumb screws so forgive the off angle rock guard -- I'll go fix that)







I cut a roughly 6" wide gap in the rubber molding so cut a piece off from each side so I could run the 6" EternaBond tape right through the middle. Then I reattached the two pieces I cut off with 3M VHB (very high bonding) tape. That gap in the center would normally be taken up by the center trim piece -- I'm going to find a suitable piece of rubber to put there at some point.

[Happycamper2019]

brand new to this forum, dont really know how to be posting... but we jsut purchased a 2002 3124 trailmanor, come to find out the roof is leaking. started ripping the inside ceiling apart to determine the leak. deff looks like the sun roofs are letting water seep in. the roof has been eterbond and painted with some type of water proof coating from previous owners, we were thinking of just replacing the entire roof...

Has anyone tried to do this or successful done this on their T.T?

any help or advice would be amazing, thank you! happycamper2019

[Expanderoo]

Originally Posted by Happycamper2019

brand new to this forum, dont really know how to be posting... but we jsut purchased a 2002 3124 trailmanor, come to find out the roof is leaking. started ripping the inside ceiling apart to determine the leak. deff looks like the sun roofs are letting water seep in. the roof has been eterbond and painted with some type of water proof coating from previous owners, we were thinking of just replacing the entire roof...

Has anyone tried to do this or successful done this on their T.T?

any help or advice would be amazing, thank you! happycamper2019

As a new owner too, my advice is to learn as much as you can about the construction techniques and the water drainage approach TrailManor used/envisioned. So for example, the body panels are made out of basically aluminum clad foam. So there is one or two layers of aluminum, some foam and then another one or two layers. So if you replace the roof the way you're suggesting, that might mean replacing the interior ceiling too.

The part about drainage is that there is basically a channel along the edge of the roof on each side where the top sheet of aluminum is bent downwards (behind the corner cabs out of sight). That is done so the water that leaks through goes into a channel that runs all the way to the front (or presumably back -- I'm assuming the rear shell has the same channels) down the end and out the bottom of the trailer. Based on that, my understanding is that the screw holes from the top that hold the awning brackets don't need to be water tight -- a little leakage is okay. However, the screw holes holding the awning itself (those that go through the awning body and into the wall) are below this drainage channel so it is more important that those don't leak (ideally).

That said, I've been thinking about this whole drainage channel idea and why we both with caulking the edge of the side caps on the roof at all. My guess is that the reason for it is to try to prevent as much water as possible entering the drainage channel so that in a heavy rain, most water will be shed on the exterior and the little that makes it's way into the corner/edge caps will drain properly.

As I said though, I'm a new owner so not really sure about some of these aspects. If I were in your shoes, I would be happy they didn't use silicon. I would probably try to avoid the EternaBond tape unless it was suspect. It might be that all you need to do is basically what I did in this thread here -- remove one or more vents/skylights/fan enclosures (whatever you want to call them) and then decide how you want to rebuild them and go ahead and do it. There are a lot of options.

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I forgot to say, I'd suggest making a new thread with some photos of what you're describing and go into detail with what the issue is. There are a lot of smart people here with a lot of experience with these trailers so getting feedback is a good idea. There is also a ton of information in past threads so searching is helpful too of course.

[Happycamper2019]

awesome thank you expanderoo.
i will be posting pictures soon, still need to download them. we have found so far that both sunroof riser boards seem to be wet, rusty screws/ brackets as well,on the outside of the rood both sunroofs and ac unit have been silicone or something. horrible job. and the middle bag seal that encloses both sides has rotten wood where the bag seals staple to. hopefully an easy fix. like you said without pictures it will be hard to discuss and determine more info. thanks for the info so far though. very helpfully.