1986 22' wood on wall rotted

Wall is severely rotted. I plan to remove upper cabinets over the sink and replace the wood from the countertop to the ceiling. What will I encounter behind the wood and how hard is it to replace. I am fairly handy with tools and am going to try to do this myself. Thanks for any help you can give me.
Mike

fathermike,

dirtfan provided a link to the forum thread of the amazing job that dirtfan has been doing on his trailer repair project for wood damage. There are pictures posted that you would find of interest.

Hi I'm Larry from Elkton Md and I am presently doing a repair job on my wall of a 1986. Behind the rot you will find styrofome glued to the wood panel, also, you will most likely have to replace the bottm rail. I used oak 2X4 for this. Don't forget to cut out for the electric lines. I also put a 3" alum strip on the outside bottom of the top front to back. I didn't think to take pic's. I haven't found anything too hard to do. I hope this helps Larry

Rotted wood wall repair

This past weekend we had our camping rally which our service advisor attended. He looked at our rotted/delaminated walls on our 90HiLo classic. Most of the bulging wet walls seem to be at the inside bottom on the top half of the HiLo. We took out two windows and resealed in the past. Our best guess is that this is where the water got in. Now we must take out all the windows and reseal with butyl tape and scrape any old caulk away. Then clean with alcohol.Reinsert the window and then use Lexell caulk. Another source of the water leak could have been on the tophalf/bottom trim.Resealed with Lexell caulk. Check your screws on the inside window trim ring as they may loosen up with all the jaring going over roads. Clarification the resealed trim is on the outside. Another source of water getting in could be at your awning screws,back off and caulk. Caulk any hole that is made to install anything on the exterior. Now for our advisors advice,use an exacto knife to cut away the rotted wall. Stop when you hit a dry area. Try not to rip out an entire wall as he says he did it once and it a nightmare. Use 1/8 plywood to make a patch. Only use liquid nails. Use 1/8 paneling to overlay the old wall. Use liquid nails. Note that you have to take the screws out on the rail closest to the wall. Take 1/8 inch off the overlay paneling to make a snug fit. Hubby thinks this can be done with a router. We found some Georgia Pacific paneling that comes in 1/8 inch with the vinyl coating on it. Had to special order it. I realize the several people have been very sucessful at full wall tearouts. Would love to have a very detailed You tube Video by Jr repair on full wall Repair. We will be taking pictures of the the before and after. I'm not very good at describing all the details. Today we spent time packing the contents of the trailer up,cover taping our mattresses with 1 ml plastic. We fitted cardboard all over our new floor. Duct tape to the rescue. Check out Mark"s Rv Garage. He is restoring a 1965 Trailer. He says not to use plastic between the walls because it will cause the wall to rot. Lastly we were advised to let the styrofoam in the wall dry out and to leave the delamination to age gracefully. We have the trailer at my Mom"s where we have ample space to work and a garage for the trailer contents,also electric. Hopefully the weather holds nice for a while as we are working outside.

Rotted Walls

Thanks to everyone who responded. Very useful photos and hints on how to attack my rotted walls. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.
fathermike