After two days of miserable, filthy toil in high velocity Santa Ana winds, we believe we have finished the repairs to our trailer. There was considerable damage to the underside of our fifth wheel trailer from two tire tread separations; one low-speed variety near San Antonio, Texas, last February and a high-speed rip & shred east of Salt Lake City on I-80. The Texas version clobbered the rear electric jacks, some flimsy aluminum body parts, the left side tandem wheel fender, an alloy wheel, the living room slide-out lighting electrical power and some weather stripping designed to keep water from the wheels from the inside when traveling on wet roads. The right side catastrophe likewise dinged up some body panels, rearranged the right side fender profile into junk parts, stripped out the under-trailer waterproofing and ripped out some floor insulation. Little did we know that the right side waterproofing and insulation repair would be the worst task we encountered.
We started the right side repairs by purchasing a polyisocyanurate foam board, a length of peel-n-stick waterproofing window flashing, some steel strapping material, some wood cleat stock and a wide assortment of screws and washers. Then we climbed under the trailer to start the work. To make things interesting, there were Santa Ana winds gusting to about 40 mph for both days required to complete the repair and we finished each day exhausted, gritty and quite filthy from our worming around on the ground under our home while being sandblasted. Our repair was certainly better than the cheesy work installed at the factory but the location under the trailer but above the tandem wheels made for some interesting contortionist moves to get repair parts installed. Exotic cuts in the rigid repair materials were required to slip over flanges and around water piping that needed to be inside the insulation envelope. We were able to work together although the challenges almost forced the eruption of harsh language. There was considerable grunting, moaning, swearing and lacerations required to complete the work.
However, we are now finished with the major repairs to damage incurred during this year’s journey. I am almost at a loss as to what to do now but I promptly spotted my vaporizer and bottle of Jack Daniel’s which will help me get through the lull. We can now go back to our old to-do list of peeling the ugly decals from the exterior trailer walls, scraping colorful dead bug carcasses from the front of the trailer and fooling around. We are both glad the major repairs have been completed.