When it rains it pours

[Tahoe]

Getting ready to leave this morning and the shower and bath area is soaking wet! Yesterday all was fine. I climbed the ladder and saw obvious separation of the seal above the shower joining the body shells. It's 40 degrees and drizzling and there is no way I can get a good seal of any kind and we need to hit the road. I'm delaying our trip until tomorrow morning to try and stop most of the leaking until next week when I can tackle the drain valves and the roof. I'm afraid I need to cover the entire BF with a tarp when we get back and then reseal the entire roof. What's frustrating is I inspected all the seams in December and everything looked good everywhere. I take pride in keeping it clean and well maintained so this is depressing in a way. Some of the carpet headliner is starting to stain in the hidden area of the overhead bath cabinets and its seems to be sticky so it must be the glue. Although probably not the best I plan on hoping for a short dry period and getting up there with silicone as a very temperary fix. Any other ideas for a quick 4 day fix before tackling it the right way?

[whemme]

Boy, what a problem. Is the rear body cap visibly separated from the main body shell up on the roof area? I believe the caps to be attached to the main body shell by multiple screws. If the cap is pulled apart from the body shell, then the attaching screws must have pulled out. Me thinks that something must have forced the cap to separate.

I think the necessary repair to be much more than adding sealant. A trip to the factory may be warranted.

[Tahoe]

The cap isn't seperated. I just went up cleaned away about a 3 foot section, dried it up with towels, then put a make shift shelter over the seal and used a hair dryer for about 30 minutes to get it all as dry as possible. Then I layer down a bead of sealant.

What I noticed was that there appears to be a locking strip that inserts into the 2 body pieces and it has a series of cracks all about 1 inch long across the top. I don't think that is the issue , I think it's the old sealant that has cracked and seperated. It wasn't like that in Dec and we've since used the coach so maybe normal driving finally caused it to unseal. I repositioned the coach 2 days ago to clean it up and repack and it sits at a slightly different angle which may be why the water ran in over night. Looking outside right now, and it's starting to rain hard so well keep checking the rest of the day to see what happens.

The water was running down between the bath cabinets and the piece of wood separating the shower from sink area. It ran down next to the sink then down the panel into the shower. That was good because the shower caught most of the water and it drained into the grey water tank. No water damage as of now, because I caught it in time, but worried my temperary solution won't hold up in the heavy rain. Might need to concider some Etrrnabond tape along the top where it can't be seen, but I need dry weather for that as well.

[jobrien]

I think you can apply Eternabond even if it is wet. Been years since I used it, but I believe it will work. It's pretty much permanent though.

[John S.]

Chem dry will clean the headliner fabric if you need it.

[Jim Hofmann]

From your description, I think I would check those lights mounted high up on the center of the rear cap. Those wires penetrate the cap there and could be a source of your water entry.

Jim

[Tahoe]

The source was definitely the seal that connects the 2 body pieces. We just got back and it rained hard and a lot, but my repair held and we didn't have another drop come in. As a temporary fix I used a metal roof/gutter sealant. It's made by DAP and its clear. Can be put down while wet and as low as as 20F. The plan is to remove all old sealant ASAP and reseal everything if we ever get clear weather again. I wish I had at least a covered parking area but I don't so will do the best I can. I've concidered Eternabond tape up on top only where it's not visible, but I may go with 3M 5200 which is what is used extensively in Marine applications under water. The previous owner had resealed the entire coach before I bought it, but not sure what was used. Although it all looked great back in December what I'm seeing today is even the vertical seams need redoing. I'm not looking forward to this because it's probably a lot of work to do correctly, but the satisfaction of knowing exactly what I've done and how I did it goes a long way for piece of mind.