Inside there is evidence of several historical leaks, the ceiling lining is stained and cracked in a few different places with little sign of any attempt to fix. The outside top of the back window is under about a centimeter of layers of goop where it has obviously been leaking but as fixes go that's about it. The window seal I'll have professionally fixed sometime soon, but not now.
Step one, let's get up on the roof and look it over. It was encrusted with years of dirt, dried mud etc so a stiff broom was called upon to do it's thing. Once that was done it didn't look to bad, but then it only takes a tiny crack to stuff the whole arrangement so I wasn't fooled. What was obvious was that at several points in it's life the poor thing had been driven into, and in one case under, things it's shouldn't have.
On the roof over the side door were a set of dents evenly spaced and running most of the length as if someone had tried to park under a just too low garage or carport and missed by an inch. The front right had corner damage at bed height (remember I said there had been a leak in the bunk?) a good biff that had sprung the sealing strip and embedded bits of bark and wood between it and aluminium sheeting. Solid suspect! Ditto the right hand back corner except that one looked more like something rather more solid. Poor thing!
I also strongly suspect it's been tail ended traffic style at some stage, when I was fixing the back wall inside there was quite a lot of what looked a lot like stove damage, like as if it had had a good whack at tail light level. Poor thing!
Sweeping and initial survey done, it all looks fixable.
Set to work with a wire brush and a screw driver carefully prying the edging strip out a few millimeters and scrubbing out the accumulated dirt and paint flakes from behind. I'll just do the roof for now, the sides are easily reached to be done later. to make my life just a little easier, the edging strip was aluminium and nailed through to the wooden frame underneath.
Worked my way right around the edge of the roof, prying and wire brushing as I went, it didn't seem too bad, or at least not the horror show it could have been and I was (dreading) half expecting. Only took a couple of hours. Found a couple more places where it had backed into stuff or tried to be driven under tree branches etc. Poor thing. Mental note to self: Be paranoid about roof and corner clearance! Took the opportunity to measure the total height including roof ventilator (another leak source...) for later reference, 2.8 meters would clear with nothing to spare.
Set to work with a big tube of industrial silicone sealer, a small piece of stiff wire and a hammer. Squirt in the silicone, use the wire to make sure it was right in behind the sealing strip then hammer flat with...well...the hammer. It was somewhat of the pleasure to watch the silicone vanish behind the strip, then some (but not all) of it reappear as I hammered the strip flat again. Take that, damned leaks!
Go right around the outside edge twice, just to make sure, then the 3 joins across the roof where the aluminium sheets came together. These didn't *seem* to be a leak problem, but the sealer gun and I here, so why the hell not. Used up a full tube of silicone and started on a second. If I didn't know better I would swear it was soaking the stuff up. As I was working my way around the edges it was apparent the sides were going to need attention, too, sprung rivets and the like. That's ok, get to them later.
Had a good hard look at the roof ventilator for possible leaks, it was easy to see someone had replaced the whole thing at some stage (well it is 30 years old) and then epoxied the bolt heads at some point after. Suspicious. Didn't silicone it, I have other plans for that.
This all took a couple of days in easy stages, the smell of drying silicone sealant was fairly potent at night but I told myself that was the smell of dying leaks. Probably about a spoonful was actually killing of the old leaks the rest being decoration. Ah yes! you say, but which spoonful? Whatever, it's all done now, which means I can.....
Paint.
Hmm, paint. Which one? Visited a couple of camper dealers for ideas and came away short on useful info but with several offers of 'Sure, we can do that for you.' Not bloody likely! Not on my budget, anyhow. My first thought was a good quality latex roof paint, thick and flexible as well as easy to put on and clean up. Campers by their very nature shake and rattle in Transit (badaboom!), it seems logical that a paint that could flex a bit without cracking would be a good thing. A couple of nights cruising the internet for classic camper and caravan restoration sites increasingly showed this to be a solid option. Easily do-able and simple to maintain. A plastic screw top jar of pint and a brush stowed on board and you're laughing.
Granted, a professional 2 pot automotive paint job would look great but not on my budget and I have real doubts about it's flexibility anyhow. Roof paint it is then. While out shopping for fabric in Palmerston North I noticed a huge paint shop (Resene's) with a small shop attached to one side marked Resene Automotive....oh yes!
Stopped in, had a deeply useful chat with one of the sales guys about what I was doing and how best to go about it, preparation of aluminium for painting etc and came away with a 4 liter tin of best quality white plastic roof paint that would comfortably stick to both aluminium and silicon sealer. NZ$96.
Turned out preparation of the surface was wire brush away dirt and loose paint flakes, sponge clean, allow to dry then paint. I can do that! Last thing to do was to take a hot air gun to the 'Goldies' sticker on the front then wipe with meths and a rag to remove the last traces of glue. Sailors would have you believe it's bad luck to change the name of a ship, but A: it's not a ship, at least in the strictest sense of the word tho the similarities are not to be denied, B: Goldies referred to the then owner, not the camper as an entity and C: I'm not that superstitious anyhow. I like black cats, 13 is just a number and walking under ladders just means looking up to see if there is anything up there to fall on you. Granted, some superstitions have basis in fact, like being bad luck to light more than 1 (or is it 2?) cigarettes with the same match. This came about from WW1 when snipers would watch at night for the sudden glow of a match, take aim and...well you get the idea. Bad luck indeed. I don't smoke.
By this stage the silicone was good and hard, so it was pour some paint into a small jar and up the ladder with an inch brush to paint over the sealing strip and a couple of inches down the sides.
Nice paint! Not quite as thick as yogurt and amazingly sticky to boot. Slather it all over the places I resealed. Give it an hour to harden then do it all again. And again. Good stuff! Leave to go off properly over night.
Next day, back on the roof to do the roof joints and ventilator. Remove ventilator lid to expose the combing. Assault with small brush and lots of paint. 5 Coats. All over the place, right up to the soft seal, making sure to swamp all seams, joins and bolt heads. In between coats I ran a couple of coats over the roof seams as well. Up till now I had been clambering back and forth across the roof on a ladder laid from side to side to give good access to the ventilator and cross seams, the ladder was taken down and a 5 inch brush was firmly fixed to a broom stick long enough to reach the middle from a ladder leaned against the side. Paintpaintpaint. 3 coats in 2 hours with a liberal dividend for the edges I painted yesterday. As a rule I don't like painting but this was fast and easy, 2 of my favorite things.
Byebye Goldie! The front panel got 5 coats. Seems only right, that's the bit that will get pounded the most.
I wont know until the 1st decent wetting, but I strongly suspect I've killed off most of the leaks. Hope so......water is insidious stuff, the least gap and in it comes. M-B has been under cover for nearly a year now, it's as dry inside as it will ever be and I want to keep it that way. Generally the first indication you have of a leak is the stuff actually oozing/dripping inside, by that stage the insulation in the walls/roof has soaked up as much as it's going to already and fixing the leak is retroactive at best. Better, I think, to go to some pains now and hopefully not have to fix a leak at all. A camper that won't shrug off a dousing is called a sieve.
All in all I'm feeling a bit pleased with myself.
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