Kitchen Sink in RV Slideout – Bad Idea

We took our 2001 SeaView out today in order to prepare it for our first camping trip of the season. Actually, it’s a shakedown outing before our upcoming summer trip.

Anyway, I was running water in the kitchen sink when I noticed water collecting in a basement compartment right below the sink. Great. At first I thought a water line had broken, but it turned out to be the “flexible” kitchen sink drain line. After over 20 years, it’s flexible days ended today.

The connection between the flexible drain line and the lower drain snapped. I’m not the slightest bit surprised as this line has been moving in and out for 22 years.

This was the quick fix . . .

Next step –– replace that white pipe with something more flexible.

Glassing

After “stitching” together both sides of our RV’s damaged rear cap, the next step was to apply layers of fiberglass until the “valley” between each side was filled.

Very tedious process.

First, the tools of the trade . . .

I went the “polyester” route instead of using epoxy mainly because of the YouTube video series I watched – Boatworks Today . . . https://www.youtube.com/@boatworkstoday

Because I used polyester resin, I could keep adding layers of fiberglass with “laminating” polyester resin without needing to sand between each layer. However, the last layer needed to be sealed with either a “finishing” polyester resin or Gelcoat with wax. I used the Gelcoat.

Glassing

Laying down all the fiberglass layers took a few days. At most, I could apply two layers a day.

Sanding

The fiberglass layers ended up with plenty of bumps and rough edges so sanding was necessary to flatten the surface . . .

Now We’re Talking

Fiberglass Repair – Stitching the Wound

From what I gleaned from dozens of fiberglass repair YouTube videos is that fiberglass damage should be repaired from both sides if possible.

It was not possible in our case as there is only about 6 inches a space behind my RV’s damaged rear cap. Not nearly enough space to work in. What to do?

First, I used an angle grinder to grind down each side of the wound into a sort of V-shape.

Next, I cut several pieces of 1/2″ x 4″ Balsa wood strips to fit in back of the damaged rear cap. Balsa wood is very porous allowing fiberglass resin to penetrate.

Each wood strip was liberally coated with PL 400 adhesive and then lifted up into place with a metal string. Very, very clumsy.

I used six Balsa wood “stitches” to hold both damaged sides together:

Even though I took great lengths to prevent the PL 400 adhesive from contacting the wood stitches, I was still worried that it might, and that removing stitches could be very difficult.

Needless worries it turned out.

Each stitch came off effortlessly (even the paper cloth) and each bolt was pushed back until it fell on the ground.

Next Step – Glassing

Waiting for the temperature to warm up . . .

Catching’ Up

As they say, it’s been a month of Sundays since our last post.

2023 RV Trip

We leave on May 15th and return in August. So far we’ll be camping at about 40 campgrounds. However, most of these campgrounds aren’t “destinations” just stops between them.

Some of or major destinations are shown on the map below. Click on the map to enlarge it.

RV Fiberglass Repair

I’ve started repairing last summer’s damage to our RV’s fiberglass rear cap. Here’s what the damage originally looked like:

At first, all I wanted to do was to hide the damage, but then changed my mind. But after getting a $6,000 quote to fix the damage, I decided to do it myself. More on that in later posts.

However, here’s a video of a test I made using fiberglass resin . . .

But Wait, There’s More!

In the coming weeks . . .