Was able to get some work in before going out to finish my holiday shopping. Took a wire brush to all the remaining sealant, tape, decals, and road grime. Sanded the exterior, banged out dents to an exceptable level, straightened trim and glassed one pretty good gash.
My lovely wife scrubbed down the vinyl
Sanded and just about ready for paint
Heres a the worst skin damage, other than that there was a slew of pretty goo dents. The skin was far from perfect and always will be...unless I reskin it in a year or two
Heres a basic run down of an easy fiberglass fix if anyones interested:
As for the gash, I banged out the surrounding skin flat as best as possible with a hammer and dolly. Then cut out the mangled skin. I then put some foil tape on the backside, and mixed up what I call angel hair. Its a mix of fiber glass resin and cut up fiberglass. I take some cloth and cut it into small fibers no more than a half inch, then mix it in with the resin. The trick is to not put so much resin in with it that it turns to snot and unworkable. Also don't want too little resin so that it won't break apart inb the cup or stick to the repair surface. Lastly, if you cut the fibers too long you cannot pull out managable amounts to goop on.
So now you have angel hair, the hole backed and an acid brush. You goop the ngel hair in the hole to as if it were bondo. At this point you can either lay a bunch of resin on the surounding skin, place precut cloth on it and dab it with the acid brush to get the air bubbles out, as well as, saturate the cloth in resin. (this is how I did it today) Or another way which is better in some cases, is to pre impregnate cloth and cut it to size, the put it on like stickers. You take some plastic sheet celophane equally hardy product, lay pieces of cut cloth on it, then dump some resin on the cloth. Then lay another piece of plastic sheet of that. At this point you have a fiberglass cloth and resin sandwiched in plastic. Now take a bondo spreaded or soft putty knife and work the resin into the cloth completely. Once the cloth is pretty translucent, squeegy the excess resin out. Now you have prepreg cloth that you can cut with scissors, peel off the plastic, and stick directly to whatever you are reparing, make sure you put down a thin layer or resin on the repair surface before the first sticker. I plan to fix a spot in the camper floor that got all dry rotted out, Maybe I'll do a video of the prepreg method and try post it.
Thanks for all the wiring and paint tips, it will all be put to use at some point. To answer a couple questions,
Lift Panels: I plan to build my own. Hard to swallow a purchase like that at this point. I am already racking up some expenses with all the materials I have been needing. So I am going to take a stab at making new panels. One thing I think gives me an advantage is the original hinges are in good shape. They still have plenty of spring to them, and I don't have to worry about drilling new holes to the frame, which will make it really easy to locate them once the panels are riveted on.
Vinyl: I would LOVE to go to FWC and get new vinyl installed, but like the lift panels, not in the budget. My vinyl is in fairly rough but somehow okay shape...if that makes sense. Its has a few rips and a lot off pinholes but I am going to do whatever I can to fix it. My wife scrubbed it down with 303 today, and we will be shopping for vinyl repair kits soon. On that, has anyone tried glueing vinyl over the damaged areas like a patch? I'd like to gusset all the corners and maybe put an extra layer/patch where the lift panels ride. Wheres the best place to find matching vinyl material and what would I use for glue?
Thanks for reading, post again when I get something done.
. It's readily available at most RV dealerships in the parts dept. You can use a putty knife or a dull razor knife to trim it.
