Coach side wall broken loose

[jddrivfour]

Sent: 6/3/2005 2:14 AM

The coach side wall has detached from the floor and apparently at least one vertical brace near passenger seat. How is the side wall attached? Anyone had to fix something like this?
Thanks
JD

[70winnie]

Sent: 6/3/2005 11:03 AM

On mine, the side walls are attached to the frame below the floor by bolts that go thru the wall and into a piece of "L" bracket that sticks down from the end of the frame parallel to the wall.  I think there are also supposed to be screws thru the wall into the edge of the floor behind that piece of trim that runs along the outside of the wall about a foot up from the bottom, but the boards behind that trim are terribly rotted and the screws themselves are rusted away.

I had a section of my wall that was bowing out from the side of the RV.  To fix it, I glued (w/Liquid Nails) a piece of 2x4 dimensional lumber into the middle of the thermopanel (cutting away the foam and putting the wood in its place.  I then screwed thru the outside of the wall, thru the dimensional lumber, and into the edge of the floor using a 2-1/2" long hex-head screw.  But I had already removed the inside paneling for my remodel, which made doing so a lot easier.  I had also rebuilt my floor, so the wood around the edges is new and solid, not old and rotted.

[heynnema]

Sent: 6/5/2005 4:50 PM

Pretty common for these side walls to be loose. The screws come from the inside of the fender wells, into wood frames inside the sides of the coach. The wood rots, or the screws come loose and fall out.

Check out my pictures, and look very close at both my front left/right sides, and you'll see that I've drilled through the coach wall, and installed bolts/nuts that go all the way though the coach wall, and throught the L-shaped metal bars inside the fender wells. I used silicon on the outside, under the washers, and used metal nuts with plastic "won't come loose" and washers on the inside.

Maybe it's not pretty, but it beats major coach work costs, and it's solid enough for me.

Cheers, Al

[Slantsixness]

 Sent: 6/9/2005 7:12 AM

I did what Al (heynnema) did, too.. but I was able to conceal the little carriage bolts under the middle and bottom trim on mine. The only thing different that I did was to pump the front two walls full of "Great Stuff" (spray foam) to circumvent having to replace the 2 X 4 inside the wall at the floor level in the front, since there is no good way to disassemble these two walls to facilitate the 2X4 wood replacement, and enough of the 2X4's were still solid (only about a 8" on each side were rotted at the corner window and dash edges. at the floor.

The metal L brackets on mine were never screwed to the floor. They just kind of sit there, as I've seen in almost all winnies. I screwed and glued them, too.

I'm too busy getting my Winnie finished to post all the pix!

Tom

[ClydesdaleKevin]

Sent: 6/17/2005 1:42 AM

The problem with the way our coaches are constructed is that if they are poorly maintained over the years by previous owners, the wood rots away.  All that's left is the foam inbetween the plywood sandwiches.

On the Ark, I had to replace every 2x2 (they were originally 2x1.5, but I made the 2x2s work) along the lower edge.  I also had to make braces out of pressure treated wood here and there where the L brackets connected the sides to the floor.  Most importantly, I had to add a brace made of pressure treated 2x4s under the front wheel well for the awning arm to attach too.

Don't get discouraged.  The list of "to do's" is overwhelming, but eventually you'll get down to where its just maintenance after that.

Kev