Fiberglass camper top....Help!

docdave

Aspiring overlander
Interstate speed coupled with gusty winds recently ripped the vent cover off of one of my fantastic fans. While checking out the roof I discovered lots of small and medium sized cracks in my camper top. It is an early '90s Hallmark with a fairly rare (for the time) fiberglass top. I know there are some pretty knowledgeable fiberglass fabricators on this forum.. can I gelcoat the top myself and protect it?


campertop1.jpg
 

1stDeuce

Explorer
Hey Doc,
Hmm. Well, first, if you call fantastic fan, they will probably send you replacement parts. My cover was cracked, and then it left on the way to pick up my parents for a long trip... I called Fantastic to see what I should do and they offered to send all the parts I was missing free of charge!! In the end, they had me go to a local dealer and get the part I needed, and then they sent replacements to the dealer, since I needed to get gone! After that experience, every camper I own will have a real fantastic fan!

As for the roof, are the cracks just in the gelcoat, or all the way through? It looks as though the gelcoat was pretty thin, and then water wicked under after a few cracks formed, and that makes lots more cracks... You need to get it inside and let it dry for a few weeks before you don anything!!

You can re-gelcoat, but it's pretty a pretty intensive process from what I've seen. I looked into repairing some gelcoat pitting in my boat, and decided not to bother with it after I realized how much work it would be to do the whole hull. Since my boat isn't in the water much, I decided to let it ride, but if you store your camper outside, you should do something to keep water from getting in through the cracks and causing more damage. (Fiberglass will wick water...) You might have luck sanding it a little and applying some sort of epoxy coating... perhaps like the garage floor coatings?? A few coats of that to seal the cracking and you should be good again. Either that or you might have to do a rubber roof over your fiberglass... ?

Call Hallmark and see if they have any good solutions, aside from paying thousands for a new roof...

I was jealous of your fiberglass roof until now... It's heavy, but my old wood/foam/aluminum roof isn't looking so bad now...
Chris
 

NorthernWoodsman

Adventurer/tinkerer
I'm not a fiberglass expert. However, with that said, I recently had a long talk with a boat surveyor that was looking over a sailboat for me. What he told me was it all depends on how deep the cracks are as to what can be done, if anything.

If the cracks are shallow or gel-coat deep only you could grind down the fiberglass and lay up new glass/epoxy, then fair, sand, paint. If the cracks are deeper, as in most or all the way through, you might have to recreate the whole top as no amount of filling and painting will stop them from returning.

Of course, this was regarding a sailboat hull below the waterline. If your top is thin, like 1stDeuce speculated, you might have to think about laying up a reinforcing layer of glass on the underside. Then you could probably easily fill the cracks int he top, fair, and repaint.
 

docdave

Aspiring overlander
At the risk of speaking blasphemy here, I'm wondering about using white mobile home roof coating, if gel coat won't fill the cracks....wha'cha think?
 

1stDeuce

Explorer
I put that stuff on a mobile home once. It's a mess!! :) I think you should look into a more "epoxy" type coating... Or just over-roof it with EPDM rubber. I don't think structure is your problem, so anything that seals it honestly should be fine.
 

docdave

Aspiring overlander
How about roll on bedliner? I found some two part in white... suppose it would stick to fiberglass.
4
 

L57

Member
Try the website fiberglassrv.com they do a lot of renovations on the small trailers have a lot of help for folks.
 

1stDeuce

Explorer
White is good, but I would look for something that goes on smooth. If the bedliner has grip stuff in it, I'd find something else. If not, then it might work fine! Seriously, check out the garage floor epoxy too, it might work pretty well. Either way, I'd rough up the roof a little with some 80-100 grit, then roll away!!! :)
 

incognito

Adventurer
Hy,
look on ebay the cheapest for rv parts sometimes.
If you add rigid gelcoat +adding more weight it will crack even more . i would put a rv roof material which stays flexible. talk to a rv repair shop i'm sure they know the right product
or look at this product maybe it could do the job
http://www.campingworld.com/shopping/item/dicor-elastomeric-rv-roof-coating-gallon/47594
dicor is what i use for roof vents joints and is a good product for rv.
hope this helps
incognito
 
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