Greetings!
My wife and I just purchased a 2012 R-Pod 177 Hood River Edition. We LOVE IT…it’s perfect for the two of us!
Unfortunately, we should have inspected it a little more closely before we bought it. There appears to have been some water damage in the past in the rear below the pass-through storage. The underbelly is no longer attached to the back of the camper. That’s what caught our attention.
Since I don’t know exactly how the R-Pod is built, I’m not sure exactly how to fix it and thus this post. I have not yet consulted my local dealer I bought it from as I was hoping to repair it myself.
The wood below the floor in the very back is not protected by anything and gets wet when it rains and of course if/when we drive in the rain. The wood has some water damage and is somewhat soft. At first I was hoping to just seal it up and prevent any further damage, but I’m thinking now that I might need do some additional work because it appears the back bottom of the camper fiberglass has/is pulling away from the camper itself.
So, I have uploaded some pictures to my Microsoft One Drive for you to look at to offer me any suggestions. The link to the pictures is: https://1drv.ms/u/s!Aus-snDEGLMPqwvNdE2GZwv5JGic?e=Hd9p3l - https://1drv.ms/u/s!Aus-snDEGLMPqwvNdE2GZwv5JGic?e=Hd9p3l .
Picture 1 shows the back door-side corner where the back has pulled away from whatever it was anchored to.
Picture 2 shows the bottom of that corner where you can see corner damage.
Picture 4 shows where the that bottom wood piece is no longer under the L-shaped trim piece that runs along the very back bottom. I’m assuming the “white” I see is foam as some small white “pebbles” have been seen around that gap.
The other pictures just continue to show that the underbelly is no longer attached and some of the damage.
At first my thought was to remove the back trim piece, seal/harden the plywood bottom and then use some Flex Mend tape to help extend the underbelly to the the fiberglass back/roof piece and then replace the trim and seal up the corners. However, then I noticed the back/roof piece pulling away in the corner (picture 1) and I’m worried that if that’s all I do, that corner might continue to pull away and not solve my problem in the long run.
Is there “something” I can do to pull the corner back in (and it stay in) and then seal it back up. What is that corner attached to? Do/should I also removed the bottom side trim pieces too to help with sealing it back up? I don’t see any water damage in the pass-through storage area and nothing is soft in there…only the bottom where the underbelly is no longer attached and the corners, especially the corner where it’s pulling away.
Any help you can provide would be very welcome and appreciated. I can post additional pictures if needed.
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