89 Chieftain exterior Graphics update

[Easternmost Winnebago]

I'm thinking of updating the exterior graphics on my 1989-90 Chieftain. The stock vinyl stuff is long faded and peeling off, so i'm thinking of soaking whats left with acetone and scraping them off with a plastic straight edge then repairing a few small holes and cracks in the gel coat. Then i want to scrub the skin down with TSP and plastic scrubbing pads to remove the light chalk and mildew. My only decision is whether to redo the graphics with vinyl or colored gel coat using the stock tan as a base color.  I Want to modernize the design a bit and re-chrome the front and rear bumpers and repair the light rust scale underneath and reseal the frame and storage compartments with a oil base undercoating.  I Live in Northeastern Maine where rust is the King of the road and you either keep up with metal maintenance or you end up walking.  So that being said, does anyone have any experience with redoing the exterior finishes?  Thanks fellas.

[M & J]

Type Exterior in the search bar upper right hand corner of the forum home page and you will get at least 13 pages of posts to choose from. Many threads on what and how.


Below is one example:


http://www.classicwinnebagos.com/forum/index.php/topic,6804.msg28667.html#msg28667

[Easternmost Winnebago]

How about you type Exterior and see what you get.

[TerryH]

'Exterior'.........'Entire Forum'.........13 pages of posts.

[M & J]

Ah. I wasnt the one who was asking for advice. 

It is recommended users looking for answers utilize the forum search feature as part of thier quest.

Right Mark?

[Rickf1985]

I have to confess, I have never had much luck with the search feature, I am just plain lousy at search syntax. If you do not get the wording exactly right you will come up with nothing or 20 pages of stuff that barely resembles what you are looking for. It is the same on most forums. There is one forum I am on that uses Google to search the forum and that works pretty good.

[Easternmost Winnebago]

Well i tried to copy a picture to post but my Google drive is crap, so i found the video of a motor coach with the paint colors and pattern i like to put over my 1989 33 RQ using the stock tan as a base which will be clear coated after a good stripping and cleaning. Here's the youtube video : https://youtu.be/qwmNfsPLppI?t=39
Everything will have to be Gelcoat i'm guessing. I'm not to sure about standard paint over fiberglass.

[Rickf1985]

You are referencing gelcoat a lot. Gelcoat is the first layer that is sprayed into the mold of a fiberglass panel and is what give the panel its gloss coat. It is not a paint. Are you talking about base coat/ clear coat maybe? On an 89 (I have the same year) most of the gel coat is going to be shot and porous. So any paint you use will need to be full coverage type of paint. Sand, primer, sand, paint several coats. and if using a base coat clear coat then you will be putting a coupe coats of clear on top of the base. This is a HUGE undertaking!

Plus, if you are doing the graphics then you have all of the masking, sanding, painting, unmasking and remasking for the next color etc.

[Easternmost Winnebago]

I Have a friend that Worked many years in boat building to help me with it but we are going to take one of the extra greenhouses i have laying around and add 5 foot to the base of each metal frame to raise it up over the Winn. and build a greenhouse to go over the RV while we work on it to control the dust etc. and keep the snow off in the winter months. I Added the price of a piece of UV Greenhouse clear plastic to the cost of the paint and supplies and can cover the RV good for less than $2000. I'm really hoping i don't have to re-coat the part of the graphics that are the original tan, but just clear prime/seal coat. What do you think?

[Rickf1985]

Wishful thinking, you are going to have a different finish where the old graphics were. Best to sand the entire coach evenly and start anew. Depending on how weathered the original surface is on the majority of the coach you might get by with one coat of high build primer and it will be good enough to cover the imperfections in the original finish.

I like the greenhouse idea.

[CapnDirk]

It also depends on what is weathered, and whether (pun intended) it had a clearcoat.  With the manufacturers doing anything to save a buck, it would not surprise me if they didn't use a single stage paint (single stage=color embodied with clear, two stage=color coat under clear coat). 


That being said, if you want to know which, take some very fine wet or dry paper (black stuff) and do a little sand on the color in question.  If it comes up chalky its clear coat.  If it comes up color it's either single stage or the clear coat is thin or gone.  In that case, time to start over.


The only thing we sand for the most part is primer.  Panels to be painted are scrubbed with a fine nylon pad and etching past dipped in water.

[Easternmost Winnebago]

We're going to get the old graphics off and try to clean it good then buff it with some 3M compound i have and see what's left under the dirt and stains from the various roof sealants that have bled down the sides then decide what to do from there. Painting seems cheaper even with all of the labor than getting a vinyl wrap printed and applied to the whole thing. Most places average $5000 per side for something that big and $1500 for the back and another $600 for the front.

[CapnDirk]

Wow EW.  I never knew those graphics cost that much.  I'd start painting long before spending a fraction of that.

[Easternmost Winnebago]

Just a typical car runs over $2000 so you can imagine how much it costs to cover a football field sized RV. I was hoping it would have been a cheaper easy way out but it wasn't so.

[Rickf1985]

These coaches were not painted, the color was part of the fiberglass panels. It looked great when they were new 25-30 years ago. The gel coat degrades whether it is taken care of or not outside. Only if you were lucky enough to find one that had lived it entire life in a barn or garage out of the sun will you have a decent exterior.

[Easternmost Winnebago]

I Know it would be like betting on the blackjack table hoping for something good under the dirt but it has to be clean before i start sanding so the contaminates stuck to it are gone before they load up the sandpaper and spread everywhere's. I've seen where people put everything from clear silicone spray to floor polish on these land yachts. We're starting the frame for the greenhouse to go over it today then we have three days of storms this weekends and i'm waiting on a guy to come and grade the area behind the garage level so i can get some gravel down then a double layer of black landscape fabric will go under the RV Before we slide the frame over everything and close it in to start work on it. I Wish i had a good camera to take some time lapse pictures of everything.

[Rickf1985]

Pretty much guaranteed you will find silicone around the windows. Good luck with that. W% W%

[Easternmost Winnebago]

Then there's several places that are delaminated, mostly small blisters but i can fix them with fiberglass based epoxy that mixes straight from the tube and put pressure on them to hold them down/in till they set. That shouldn't be a issue but should be done before i start sanding etc,.

[Rickf1985]

Check and be sure it is a blister, If it is near a window I will bet money that it is the wood behind the very thin glass that has swelled and fallen apart and that is the lump you see. If you put epoxy in there that lump will get rock hard and you will never be able to do anything with it. You have the sam3e vehicle as mine so I am very familiar with the delamination on these. The fiberglass walls are a sandwich of materials and the actual glass is very, very thin and is backed by a composite wood that swells and falls apart when it gets wet. That is the what you see. It will seldom push right back in. If your does you are lucky but be absolutely sure before putting any type of glue in there. Somewhere in these pages I have pictures on when I removed my windows to reseal them and you can see how thin the glass is where it had delaminated at the window.

[Easternmost Winnebago]

All but one push in easily and hit something solid behind each one. I'm guessing it's luan plywood pinned to a aluminum frame. The worst one is on the side of the shower stall. The outer skylight panel was busted from storm damage and it went Un-noticed and water accumulated in the blue foam insulation and soaked the wood skin good and i'm thinking the bond separated when the wood swelled, or froze and it popped out, so that's the problem child that you can't whip with the belt...lol. Unless there's a chance there's a metal frame crossing the middle of the blister then i have a chance to bond it if i could get the wood out of the way enough to inject my epoxy enough that it wraps somewhat around the metal frame then set. The only issue would be setting it even and flush not having the wood backing as a gauge.

[Oz]

It's best to search on the board the topic applies to.  In this case.  Coach exterior/interior instead of entire forum.  That narrows things down quite a bit.  In addition, this topic should have been posted on that board, so I moved it.


Search keywords are easy.  People make it too complicated and that's why they don't get the results they hope for. 


Example:  People will enter, "what's the best way to paint my RV"  (not good)
Correct:  "Paint exterior",  or:  "Paint body", etc


It also asks if you want to search just titles or body of topics.  This is why it's very important to put the nature of the problem in the title, not just the component, like:  "carb problem".  Correct:  "No fuel to carburetor" or "Carburetor not getting fuel"


Anyway... back on topic.