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RE: Bigfoot 2500 Front Fiberglass Delam Repair Questions
Most of the walls of a Bigfoot are fiberglass, glued to foam insulation/core, followed by 1/8" luan on the inside. This makes the "sandwich". Around the basement it is thicker plywood rather than foam. I've never been inside the front bulkhead, but if Bigfoot says it is plywood then it probably is.
The difference between this and boat construction is the use of contact cement. On a boat, the fiberglass would be directly laid up on the plywood (or foam), bonding to it with the resin. In some methods, the core is added after lamination using a wet bonding agent (like thickened resin). You will never see contact adhesive used for this purpose in a boat (well, perhaps a very, very cheaply built one).
The difficulty this creates when trying to fix delamination is that both surfaces (inside of fiberglass and surface of core) are covered with (failed) contact adhesive to which nothing will stick, except perhaps more contact adhesive. More contact adhesive will have solvents in it that may melt and reactivate the failed adhesive, or it may just make a mess. In a boat, the first attempt at repair is usually to inject epoxy into the void through small holes and clamp it together again. Epoxy will not stick to the adhesive in this case. The second attempt in a boat is to cut the delaminated skin off so the surfaces can be prepared, then either relaminate new glass, or bond the cut out piece back, then scarf the joint. That is a lot more work because of the finish work required. If the core is rotted due to water intrusion, then the core has to be removed to the edge of the rot and replaced with new.
if you have time, repairs of this sort aren't rocket science, the only hard part is the finish work to make it look new again. The bulkhead isn't that visible, so maybe a less than perfect job would be acceptable there.
I am surprised that you cannot get the door open on the jacks. For sure one thing that can happen is you can cross load the jacks, twisting the shell which will distort the door frame and bind the door. You can keep that from happening by watching the lower corner of the door carefully as you raise the jacks to keep the margin between door and frame the same on the side and bottom. The movement is fairly obvious.
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HMS Beagle
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07/27/23 09:39am |
Truck Campers
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RE: switching to two 6 volt batteries?
I would never go back to flooded lead acid batteries, just due to the inevitable corrosion. However AGM batteries do have to be correctly charged, or their life will be short. That means correct voltages, and for sufficient time, somewhat frequently.
There is an argument for two 12V vs two 6V: if you run an inverter with high current draw, the two 12V batteries will have lower internal resistance than two 6V, and so lower voltage drop while running the inverter.
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HMS Beagle
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07/13/23 09:30am |
Truck Campers
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RE: Bigfoot 2500 Underbelly, Thoughts and Pics
My Bigfoot looks the same. The straps support the tanks fine, but by the edges mostly, the tanks are thin enough material that the middle sags down under the weight of the fluid in the middle where the straps really can't support it. I doubt more straps will help. You would need something to make the bottom of the tank stiffer, either beams between the straps and tanks, or perhaps plywood under the whole bottom of the tank. The straps support the tanks fine off the truck, even when full. I will say that isn't how I'd have designed it, but it seems to work OK.
On the Bigfoot - and every other RV I've owned - there is tons of space wasted everywhere. This tends to be better on the European builds for some reason. I'd estimate that fully 1/3 of the available storage volume is inaccessible air space.
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HMS Beagle
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07/07/23 11:32pm |
Truck Campers
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RE: HOST , LANCE , slide-outs fiberglass skin fatigue.
I've seen WAY too many problems with slides of all types to want one again. Had one once on a high end class A. I can't say they are more problematic than many other things on a typical RV, but that is a very low bar to clear. If you want the space, and you are willing to put up with the problems, then you are like 80% of the Rv buyers out there. Which is why they continue to offer them. But calling them generally problem free is a fantasy.
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HMS Beagle
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07/03/23 06:11pm |
Truck Campers
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RE: HOST , LANCE , slide-outs fiberglass skin fatigue.
It’s been my experience that when it comes to truck campers, the notion of ‘engineered’ is often generously applied…
3 tons
Not just truck campers, RVs generally.
When you knock the side out of a box, there is significant and heavy structure required to replace the stiffness that side provided. With small slides there is still enough wall area to maybe make up the structure, but with large slides the side is simply compromised.
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HMS Beagle
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06/26/23 09:28am |
Truck Campers
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