Day 8

Here is the only picture we took after putting the roof on today. Learned a ton.

1. Forget the instructions. Do 4' at a time MAX. It is much easier.

2. Make sure the rubber membrane is straight or nearly so.

3. Don't do this on a windy day.

4. USE LOTS OF GLUE. We had to pull up the first section and lay another layer of glue. From then on we did 4' sections and rolled on glue in two layers for each section. This worked very well.

5. Don't step onto the roof while it is drying. Use luan on or something else to distribute your weight. (This was in the instructions.)

Day 7

We used Styrofoam glue to glue the new pieces of Styrofoam to the ceiling, and the new piece of luan into place. We used liquid nails to glue the luan to the wood frame and the vent opening and the metal framing.

Then we put lots of weight on the plywood to hold it down and make sure the luan fully adhered.

We used Kool Seal patch to fill the holes that were put in the ceiling in the original construction. All in all the roof looks pretty good. I keep picking small bits of roof, and rubber, and Styrofoam off the roof.

Day 6

It never rains in California, except when I have a major project or my parents come into town. This day we focused on the section of roof laminate has come loose and popped up. We decided to cut our a section of the plywood and take out whatever Styrofoam needs to be removed.


This picture shows an up close picture of the ceiling around the vent pipe. I'm not sure you can see, but apparently when they installed the cabinet in the bathroom they pushed up on the ceiling putting stain on the luan roof. It finally popped and left a sharp edge pointing up into rubber membrane.


The side rails on the edge of the roof took the hardest hit from water damage. The front passenger and rear driver sections took the hardest hit. We replaced about 8' in each side.

Day 5 - Part 1

I took some time this morning and investigated more the area that I have little idea how to fix. This shows a larger picture of the area where the 1/8" (NOT 1/4" luan) has popped up.


I peeled a little bit more of the luan up to realize that there is no support along the outside edge of the rv. It rests on the metal joists with no support front to back. Unless you count the 1/8" edge of the metal frame, which provides a little support but no place to glue them together.


In this view I'm holding the luan up. The foam insulation seems to be puffed. Maybe from water damage but it is too big to allow the plywood to rest evenly down.


Here the picture shows the luan lifted up by the insulation and way out of alignment with the siderail and neighboring luan.

Day Four - Part 2

The biggest damage is to the Front Right corner of the roof. You can see in top rail of the side wall a big hole where the 2x2 has disintegrated.


Here is what I was able to take off with just my hands and a flat head screwdriver. The 2x2 sits in a "L" shaped metal beam. I will probably take both rails out on the two sides of the rv. The picture below shows damage in the Left rail as well.

Here is the second worst area of damage. This is at the rear left corner of the roof, opposite of the pictures above. Here the plywood shows damage. I'm not sure if I can take the plywood up or not. Especially without impairing the structural integrity of the roof.

Here is another shot of an early picture showing the sheet of plywood that has popped up 1/4" If I step on it, it lowers down, but It takes all of my weight to make it do that, and of course, when I move off, it returns to this position. I guess the most amazing part is that no where along either side rail is there any mesh tape, to help the roof cross this gap. Even other places in the natural variations of the wood there is an 1/8" difference. It seems to me that these joints should all have mess over them. Seems pretty sloppy on the part of Fleetwood.

Day Four - Part 1

I couldn't believe that my wife was even willing to get on the roof yesterday. Day four is here, and she volunteered to go back up and help some more. I can't say enough about how much I appreciate her help.

Here is a shot of the laminate of on the nose, and the rubber roof pulled out from under it. The rubber roof was laid about 5" under the laminate. NO glue no staples, just laying there. I wasn't sure a day ago, how this all worked. Now it seems pretty simple to recreate with the new rubber.


While I was finishing up, Jojo and mommy came up the ladder to visit.


Here is a shot of the completed and cleaned roof. It took nearly 12 hours of work to get all of the rubber up. Interestingly there are large sections where the glue was nothing but a fine powder. No wonder the rubber cracked and peeled. In my next post I'll show the damage I found.

Day Three

I got started early this morning. I woke up around 6:20, and I got a quick breakfast and was out working by 6:45. The first thing I did was take down the remaining side rail, then pull the 100 or so staples out of the side. Despite the fact that this side is down hill in it's normal parked position in the drive way, the staples and screws were a lot more solid. Although the front 3' of header on the wall section is completely rotten. It looks to be a 2x2, but some how I'm going to have to replace a section of it.

I got a surprise at 9:30 when my wife came out and offered to help in the scraping and peeling department. She did a ton of work: at least half of the total time we spent today, 9:00 am - 5:00pm non stop. We Traded off watching our 3 year old and sitting up on the roof.

I took advice from others and taped plastic in all of the roof openings to prevent dust and debris from filling the inside of the rv.



This bag of debris is 3/4 of the rubber from the roof. It mostly came up in little pieces or small stips. The rubber was paper thin. It was like scraping off a label only the label is 8' wide and 20' long. That's why in 8 hours we still weren't done.

Here is a picture of the 1/4 of the roof remaining. I realized this morning while working on the side of the rv that the rubber extends 5" under the lamanant piece that makes up the nose of the cab-over. I won't be able to get all of that out, so I'll just have to pick a point and cut it down inside there. Fun Fun.

Day Two - Part 2

It took a lot of work, but I finally have everything off the roof. Here is all of the vents, antenna, and assorted vents all laid out on the ground. Along with a box I put together to lower everything down.


The next step was to remove the side rail from one side. This was the last major task for day 2.


Here is one corner of roofing peeled away. The existing roofing is very thin. It looks like it's going to be a very tough day tomorrow.



Here is the first sign of a extensive work to be done on the roof even after the rubber is up.

Day 2 - Part 1

The start of day two was the air conditioner. I took the cover off on the roof only to see nothing in the way of bolts to remove. I then came inside and found 4 7" bolts in the four corners of this metal flange.


Here you can see I'm using my cordless drill with a flexible socket driver. This was an answered prayer for removing the screws on the roof, and taking out these 7" bolts in no time flat.


Here is a view of the roof with everything off. My plan based on some others who have done a similar project is to leave the air conditioner on the roof and simply move it around as needed.



Here is a view the other direction. The two vent pipes are loose, I'm leaving them in until I'm ready to roll out the new roof. This should help keep debris from falling into the tanks.

Day One - Part 3

Here are the last things I got done on day one. Here is the Wineguard Antenna unscrewed and sitting on the roof upside down. I had to take the set screw out of the handle down below, and then the antenna just lefted off the roof.
















The very last thing I got done was the removal of the cab-over fan. You have to love southern california weather. It's the last weekend of January and the forcast is mid to upper 70s and 0% chance of rain for the next 10 days.

Day One - Part 2

The first part of the project was removal of the awning. I did it first because I had my wife around to help. One lesson I read was it takes two to remove the awning, and three to put it back up. I see now how true that is.

I found the instructions online. Got to love the internet. It saved me an hour of fiddling. The first thing was to remove the rails from the rv.

Then we slowly slid the awning out of the awning track.

Here we have the awning almost completely out of the track. It does get a little hard to handle as it gets out. We remembered to lower the legs of the rail back down and that made it only about 7' tall and much easier to handle.

Day One - Part 1

I built a tarp set-up because my Father-In-Law decided to come visit after I began to take the roof off. He stayed in the RV for a week, and this setup allowed him to stay in the RV and stay dry.

Here is a better view of the truss system I built to hold up the tarp. Since the roof is coming off, I wasn't too conerned about what setting the trusses on the roof might do.







Here is a good example of the damage I discovered a month ago when I first decided something had to be done. None of this was here 6 months ago, when I put the Eternabond tape on.