Expanding Rear Shell

My rear shell seems to be expanding. I really have no idea what is causing this. There's no obvious damage anywhere else, no obvious screws loose or other signs of warping or expansion. I can't imagine this was held together with the caulking alone, but I can't tell what I'd need to fasten down to correct this.

I suspect (although I hope not) that what holds this in shape is the bending/shaping of the shell at the factory and that for some reason mine is being bent in the other direction. This is fairly easy to push back, but it doesn't stay put.

The other side is similar, but MUCH less severe. The back on the other side is pulling away from the caulking, but it's not exposing the underlying body as it is on the pictured side below.

As I mentioned before my local trailmanor dealer is no longer in business. Any ideas as to what to do about this? (see picture below)

Mike

[MariaG]

I hate to speculate, but have you checked the wood framing for rot? If it's degrading, the screws holding it together could be pulling loose. We have a similar problem with the rear shell as we haven't replaced the wood back there yet. My husband temporarily used metal strapping and screws to hold it in place until we can get the next phase of our rebuilld done, which will be the rear shell.

Hi Maria: Thanks for replying... I love your blog. It inspires me :-)

Anyway... unless I'm missing something there's no wood framing there. The picture was of the upper rear section. Sure there's wood trim but nothing structural in the upper part. However I did inspect that open part more carefully (to make sure I wasn't missing any place where there might be wood) and I found what may be the immediate cause.

There's a screw that's pulled through the aluminum plate that was holding it in to the rest of the frame. Our rear section has been hard to open up ever since we got it and I imagine that after years of tugging it, it must have finally given out. Anyway... the fix still eludes me as it seems to get access to the busted aluminum piece I'd have to do major surgery on the panel that houses the rear window (basically remove it to get access to that screw).

Thoughts?

[Bill]

Mike -

On later TMs, anyway, the corner trim piece - the one that runs up and down to cover the joint - comes right off. It is held on simply by caulk. Assuming I am correctly understanding your situation, you should be able to pull off that trim piece, and get access to all the screws that hold the rear panel to the sidewall. Remove the bad screw, get another just like it but slightly larger, and drive it into the same spot.

Then, if the shell is so hard to raise that you pull the wall apart in the process, you might want to adjust the torsion bars to give a bit more lift. There is a good tutorial somewhere on this board, written by Denny_A, on adjusting the torsion bars.

By the way, some people open the shells by lifting them at one corner, rather than the center, and I was never sure why. Doing so concentrates all the stress at one corner joint, rather than sharing it between the two corners. And the off-center pull makes the shell come up crooked, so it drags on the lower sidewall and further increases the stress. If you have been lifting from the corner, try lifting from the center after you have fixed the joint.

Bill

Thanks Bill... I'll check out that trim piece and see if it gives me the access I need.

The lifting was just a bit excessive. I'd say about 1.5 people to lift it up. And we tended to lift from the middle. Or, rather the main lifting from the middle plus an extra hand on one or the other side. What I really expect did it in is that we'd really have to tug to get the pin to line up what the hole in that locking bar. The main lifting never seemed to me to be that excessive, but I just never thought about the stress from the last "inch" we'd have to go to get that pin in place.

Anyway, neither were all that hard as this is our 8-9th year of using it, but it was apparently enough.

[commodor47]

Originally Posted by jamida

. . .What I really expect did it in is that we'd really have to tug to get the pin to line up what the hole in that locking bar. . .

Rather than tugging on the end of the shell to line up the locking bar, try pulling or pushing the lift bar. I have used this technique on occasion. Adjusting the torsion bar tension solved that problem. From your description, it sounds like the torsion bars need adjustment as the shell should easily extend to the locking position.

Dick

[MariaG]

Thanks for the compliments on the blog, but really all I do is take pictures and type it up, DH is the fix it guy. *G* I asked him about the problem and he thinks you should probably take a few of the screws out further up the wall and along the bottom, checking to see if they're in solid wood or if they're rusty, etc., to rule out the possibility of wood rot. Failing that, he said the only solution he came up with was the metal strapping. He got the idea from a diagram of a fix sent to me by Happytrails, who got it from Ed at Trailmanor, but I don't know if this is specific to the 1986 model or not - you'll notice my husband changed the way it's done a bit - the bolt is to draw the straps tighter. My pics were huge, so please go to my profile and look at them in the album. Hope this helps!

Mike,

I just fixed our '98 3124KS about a month ago suffering from exactly the same issue and judging from your photo, your unit must be within a year or two of ours. Your blue and gray trim lines match ours and heck, even your spare tire cover is identical. So hopefully the construction techniques used at the time will be the same for both our units.

Basically, I removed the soft vinyl center of the trim edging that covers the shell corners by just prying it out with a screwdriver (it's very easy to put back in) and underneath there were some short screws holding on the trim edging. I know Bill said that he thought it was only held on by caulk, but mine had screws. Anyway, I lifted the trim edging to find that there were a couple of roughly 3" long screws that run through the front part of the shell into the side panel that had pulled out. So I just drilled new holes and used some of those rust proof deck screws to hold it back together. I was expecting to screw into wood on the side panel but was surprised to find that there was an aluminum strut under there.

Whether this was the correct fix I don't know, but I do know that it felt tight as heck and very solid when I got all done and I'm sure that I didn't do any structural damage to the side wall or front shell. So I squeezed the vinyl strip back into the center of the trim piece, caulked up the seam and called it good.

The whole process ended up taking less than an hour and I was working it out as I went along, so all things being equal, that should get you going. As with you, the common wisdom was that the original cause might be a mis-adjusted torsion bar but from what I could tell, everything was even and normal on both sides and the front wall seems to be resting on the intended pads just about like I would expect them to. So time will tell, but if I was a betting man (and I am), I'd bet that I've had my last problem with that spot.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

To All:

Thanks a bunch!! Bill and Joe, I think you are on the right track and I'll try what you suggest this weekend. The screw that pulled through does indeed look like a 3" deck screw. And I can see all the metal parts you describe, that gap on the inside of the TM is wide enough to look into the very guts you describe. (Joe, thanks for the detailed instructions.) And I bet it's the "slightly tighter than normal" torsion bar that is the root cause of this problem so I'm looking forward to fixing that too (FWIW, the other pop-up end is slightly looser than normal so I'm sure I'll be adjusting that too).

Maria... I examined your pics a bit more closely and it looks like your model year used wood for the framing where my model year uses metal for all the structural parts in the pop-up ends. Also... my complements on your blog are not really about your blog per-se it's about what you're doing. It's that you're rebuilding your trailmanor that inspires me to make these relatively minor repairs.

[MariaG]

I'm glad your TM has aluminum rather than wood in that area! Should make the repair much simpler. As for rebuilding - well, we're not well off and have more time than money, so fixing up things is pretty standard around here. And it keeps DH busy. *G*