roof/ceiling replace-repair

Bought a 1981 Hi Lo. Exhaust fan over shower has apparently been leaking for some time. Anyone have any experience with replacing ceiling panels? The ceiling panel and plywood have both decayed.

hello,
I have a 1981 hi-lo, that had some damage from water leak, mine had aluminum roof and it had small pin holes. main thing is figure out where the water is entering and fix that first. I used liquid roof
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on mine the ceiling was wet and it didn't take that much effort to rip the damaged area, once that is removed and you have a clean dry area to work with, then its a matter of finding similar material for insulation and the ceiling board using any method to attach it, gorilla glue, liquid nail, screws...

roof/ceiling

Thanks for the guidance. Finding the major leak was easy. the exhaust fan housing was cracked on top. have been studying the liquid rubber roofs and sounds like the way to go. Just bought the Hi Lo this weekend and are getting excited about the refurb and hitting the road this spring.

I have been very happy with the liquid rubber roof, used it twice, the first time for the back half of the roof, and a couple of weeks ago for the front half of the roof. After watching an online video on the application, I got better result by mixing the 2 parts together and waited for 1 hr before applying the liquid rubber, as it gets thicker over time, poured the material, used a squeegee to apply instead of paint brush, with this method I did not get any air bubbles and the rubber was thicker, 6 hours later we had minor rain but the rubber was solid enough that the rain water was staying on top, it did get dry to touch in 12 hrs, and 3 days later totally solid rubber. we had a lot of rain in the past few days, camper is dry inside.

I found many pinholes in the aluminum roof of my 1978 Hi-Lo when cleaning it. Don't follow me. I ripped off the whole aluminum roof, but in doing so found that the damage was mainly at the end panels where it had leaked past the fiberglass end-caps. The new alum cost $600 w/ laps already folded, from a local supply house. Took much time. I also replaced all of the roof luan plywood since it was either water damaged or torn up by removing the aluminum.

After bonding the new aluminum w/ contact cement, I found it had separated from the new plywood at the ridge and a few other places. I fixed that by my main trick - Great Stuff polyurethane foam. I drilled holes from the inside to squirt it. You can easily tell when past the styrofoam and plywood and not drill thru the alum. I would squirt it in, then quickly seal the hole w/ a wet Q-tip. I know it filled well since it came out other holes. Has worked well (~10 yrs now). I used the same trick on one side wall that had degraded and de-laminated. Before that, I had poured wood glue down from the top (while roof was off) and bonded it w/ thick plywood pressing it flat braced against a fence. Perhaps I got a bit over-zealous with the foam and it swelled that side wall a bit, but only noticeable when the sun is right and viewed along the wall.

The leaking end-caps had also rotted some of the front cabinets, which I fixed. I used butyl rubber caulk strips (ebay), backed up w/ polyurethane caulk when replacing the end caps and added an aluminum flat strip to equalize the screw pressure. I used stainless screws w/ the same square drive as original (McMaster-Carr). The factory was a bit slack on many of the critical seals, which is typical of all manufacturers. You need to do better if your trailer is to last more than 10 years, even in relatively dry CA.

Bill

Where did you get the screws? While re-installing a window I had to buy replacement stainless for a few of the holes and the new ones all started to shear off or strip. Phillips head, but still, I was a bit taken aback that the new ones did this and 15 of the old ones did not.

Rick

Replacement screws

Some have purchased screws from Fastenal. I purchased boxes of screws on line from McFeelys.

JHT said:

Bought a 1981 Hi Lo. Exhaust fan over shower has apparently been leaking for some time. Anyone have any experience with replacing ceiling panels? The ceiling panel and plywood have both decayed.

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What kind of insulation did they use in the roof and how thick was it? Did you add new insulation when-you repaired the rook and it so, how effective was it? I would like to buy a used 22tbecause that is thelorgest that will fit in my 24' garage and stay under.thr 750 hitch capacity of the truck we want to buy.
Sorry for redirecting this old thread but roof and shower repairs seem to be a theme of older travel trailers.
Walk in His Peace,
Scribe With AStylus

Welcome to the forum.

I'm sure someone that has done roof repair will be along to give you advice.

Howdy, I didn’t do a rubber roof, but I can give you some insight into the insulation and the construction technique. I collected photos as I went, feel free to check them out:

https://flickr.com/photos/91683452@N08/sets/72157672362397345

Hopefully that link works. What’ll find on the roof is 1” foam that is sandwiched between thin sheets of plywood (or similar), then covered over with the original aluminum roof material. I recommend a pink or blue foam if you end up replacing any of it, it does not absorb and hold water like the original white stuff does.

Hope that helps

I had issues with stainless screws shearing when I tecaulked windows. My rv guy says stainless alway shear off, he just uses zinc. I went back to zinc.

hilltool said:

I had issues with stainless screws shearing when I tecaulked windows. My rv guy says stainless alway shear off, he just uses zinc. I went back to zinc.

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I've had the same experience with stainless sheet metal screws. They don't seem to withstand nearly as much torque as zinc plated ones.

- Jack

WOW amazing Photos. I have a roof repair in my future on my 17 foot HiLo i will be referencing these pictures for sure. thanks.

Ron