Rebuilding a Bigfoot 5th Wheel

[Tom Y]

Good Day,
I'm rebuilding a '86 bigfoot 5th wheel, and am currently replacing some of the interior wood paneling and the ceiling in the bathroom. I have all the old paneling out, and have been testing different adhesives for bonding to the hard foam and the paneling, and so far I have not come up with a acceptable adhesive, seems most want to melt the foam, or not bond well. Best thing so far is a construction adhesive, "liquid nails" designed for frp bath panels, but it does not adheare that well, while not damaging the foam, it breaks loose easily on a bend test.
So, what have others on this list been using?
I would perfer a application with a brush over spray on if possible, as some of the repairs require rebonding small areas that have come loose, with no need to completely remove the panel.
I would really appreciate your input on this, so thanks in advance.
Tom Y

[Donna D.]

Hi Tom, welcome to FiberglassRV. I'll leave the answering of your question to the experts... but, wanted to welcome you to one of the friendliest forums on the web.

[Tom Y]

Thanks Donna D,
I feel welcome already! I have been around since december, researching all sorts of stuff. Having great fun rebuilding this little bigfoot, and have been around cast fiberglass campers for some time, mostly Scamps. This Bigfoot is like a mansion to us, 19ft of heaven for sure. Recently retired and planning on wearing this unit out again with many miles of adventure. I would never consider any other type of construction, balsa cored aluminum campers are a big pain, and not nearly as cool.
If you want to make friends fast just pull up to a campground with a cast fiberglass camper.
Tom Y

[Donna D.]

Tom, I found this topic about glues and Bigfoot trailers.... http://www.fiberglassrv.com/forums/f...r-37846-2.html

Hope it helps.

[Cam A]

Epoxy is the permanent foam friendly glue of choice, although it is somewhat expensive and not the easiest to apply. Here's another link: http://www.fiberglassrv.com/forums/f...que-48903.html Here's our go-round with fixing a delamination: http://www.fiberglassrv.com/forums/f...ion-46132.html

[Lizbeth]

Congratulation on your 5th wheel! Please post some pictures and be sure to document your repairs if you can, these types of repairs seem common on Bigfoots of that era.

[DannyH]

I second the more pictures. I love to see images. Congratulations on your purchase.

[Tom Y]

So Lots of good advice, I have worked with West System epoxies before on boat projects, and have some tests underway using hard foam, after a few days I will check the bond.
Hopefully there is four photos attached of the Bigfoot, when it arrived from Victoria last fall. I will get some photos of the interior in it's present disassembled state when I can dig the door open on the boat shed it is living in for restoration, we seem to have a bit of snow on the Olympic Peninsula today, and expecting more tomorrow, but will post those soon.
This model has a different interior layout, with a set of swivel chairs on the passenger side and a couch on the drivers side that makes into a queen bed.
Thanks for all the information, and the welcome's too.
Tom Y

[Donna D.]

Nice looking rig Tom, thanks for posting the pics. I'll look forward to interior pics too

Hopefully this snow storm will move through quickly... we're more used to the non-frozen stuff!!!

[Cam A]

Congrats on getting the best (in my opinion) layout of all the various Bigfoot 5th wheel configurations. The lower rear side windows and the smaller table make this layout feel much larger and more open. Looking forward to seeing your progress. Your epoxy boat-building skills will translate directly to this project.

[Lizbeth]

Tony, I'm looking forward to the interior pictures. All I have seen of that layout are blurry cell phone pictures in a few ads. It would be nice to have a good look at the layout.

According to the brochure of the time there was one more layout with an "L" shaped dinette on the curb side and a counter and desk on the street side.

[Maureen M.]

Hi Tony. Congratulations on your Bigfoot purchase. They are wonderful trailers. We currently have a 1987 Bigfoot 5th Wheel, but previously had a 1984 5th Wheel and a 1989 17’ Bigfoot Trailer. Here is a previous posting when we were selling our 1984 Bigfoot. http://www.fiberglassrv.com/forums/f...ml#entry270265

I believe the factory used contact cement when the trailers were first manufactured. This method is both good and challenging. Once the cement is dry to the touch on each half there is very little time needed to hold and brace the pieces together while it cures. The challenge is working overhead the cement does not allow for any shifting into place. Once the two halves touch you’re done. I have not had to remove large sections, just some small repairs and found Gorilla Glue works well. Remember that glue does foam up and will find every possible seam to leak out.

On another note after looking at your photos, I wanted to let you know about a design flaw I discovered with our 1984. The steel framing that supports the bunk area creates a triangle to the King Pin. On our trailer we had quite a bit of fiberglass damage around our hitch light. To ultimately solve that, with the help of my brother-in-law, we fabricated tubular steel “L” frame extensions welded to the existing frame creating a larger rectangle to fully support the weight of the fiberglass nose. Hopefully you won’t have to go to that extreme, but keep an eye on your light to see if there is any cracking. Later Bigfoot Industries realized this design flaw and fixed that issue. Hope that helps.

Chris

[Tom Y]

Thanks Maureen,
That is all good information. The Pink contact adhesive Bigfoot used I suspect may have been water based, otherwise most other contact adhesives melt the foam. I like the Gorilla Glue idea on smaller areas, but I am very impressed with the epoxy tests I did, every test found the epoxy repair was stronger than anything else, just a bit harder to work with, if you don't have flat surfaces to bond together, the epoxy needs a filler otherwise it does not bridge the gaps well. The foaming ability of the Gorilla Glue would bridge gaps or imperfections in the surface just fine. I'll play with that and see how strong / flexible it is.
Do you know what the factory did to correct the overhead /bunk area sagging issue? I may have gotten lucky and dodged the bullet so far on that one, no damage is showing. But if there is something I can do to reinforce or correct it now sure would be the time before any body damage occours.
Do you have any photos of your '87? My wife and I are looking for ideas on modernizing some of the interior, the walls are pretty dark origionally, and I have seen some cool things done with Contact wall paper. I know we are planning on removing the carpeting downstairs and installing a laminated hardwood flooring. I do like the couch and swivel chairs model, the smaller table works fine for the two of us, and there is lots of room to move around. The table has slides and moves closer to the center of the room when needed.
All suggestions are much appreciated,
BTW, it's Tom Y.

[Nita F.]

Tom,

We have a 1988 Bigfoot 5th wheel with the u-shape dinette. We've been making repairs and customizing it to our needs. It looks like the paneling is installed using some type of contact cement and lots of staples.

The previous owner put down new flooring using a vinyl plank similar to this: 6 in. x 36 in. Bamboo Light Resilient Vinyl Plank Flooring (24 sq. ft./case)-7111 at The Home Depot It's holding up well.

We've replaced the converter, added LED lights - interior and exterior, replaced the toilet and bathroom fan, installed surge protection, and removed the dead solar panel, and old leaking awning and antenna. For additional storage we added a wire shelf in the closet just below the door. Good place for things you don't need often but can get to easily. But my favorite mod is putting hinges on the steps to store shoes.

Don P. restored a 1988 BF 5th wheel and took lots of pictures. They may be of some help so here is the link to them:
Bigfoot Restoration

Good luck with your project.

Nita

[Lizbeth]

My mouth is hanging open.... Bigfoot made three different 5th wheel trailers at the same time. I was aware of two because we own them, Don P's is a third kind. His is a single axle in the body style of our dual axle which is different than our single axle.

To me that means they were running at least three different molds with at least three different interior layouts...which means which means at least 9 (?) different interiors. What a crazy way to do things.

Nita thank for the link to the slideshow, I have never seen that one before. Nice to see you here. Maureen and Chris too. We 5th wheel owners need to stick together there are so few of us!

[Tom Y]

Good Day again,
Earlier in this thread there was some interest in checking out photos of the rebuild of our Bigfoot 5th wheel project, so I finally got around to putting some of the photos of the progress online. So far some of the wall paneling that was delamed is replaced, I spent a lot of time in what I will call the Utility cabinet, which on our Bigfoot houses the Power center / converter at the bottom, then the propane furnace is in the next layer up, then the fridge goes in the upper cabinet. That area was in pretty bad shape, needed lots of wood replaced, ceiling and walls re-laminated, and the utility hookups upgraded. Though the fridge is not back from a rebuild the cabinet is now ready, heater and power center is done also.
I'm currently rebuilding the bathroom ceiling, which was the worse shape of all the areas. The foam insulation is rebuilt, much epoxy work, I added a wooden support beam to the ceiling and replaced the wood around the roof vent. I am installing fiberglass bathroom panel on the ceiling in there, much better than the origional wood ceiling, should last the remainder of the life of the trailer.
So the link to the photos is:

http://cid-8cc79562b96ba166.skydrive.live.com/home.aspx

There is lots of photo files at this site, just scroll down to the Bigfoot 5th wheel folder, you will find what photos I have taken of the rebuild there, with captions, and I will continue to update that file as the work continues.
BTW, I'm a sailor, and there are lots of good photos of sailing trips around Washington and BC, along with the rebuild of our sailboat, done in the same boat shed that the Bigfoot is now residing in during it's rebuild.
Your welcome to browse any of those photos if you like. There is a slideshow feature for any of these photo files available once you have clicked on a photo within a file.
Have a great day,
Tom Y

[sfoss]

Congrats on your new camper. You will have alot of fun fixing it up. Would love to see inside pics!

[Cam A]

You are obviously a very handy guy with a lot of drive. Great work, the trailer will last a very long time once the foam is epoxied. Did you consider clamping by just screwing through the wall from a board on the outside to a board on the inside of the delam and dealing with the cosmetics of the screw holes later? (If you had access to the inside, I suppose). For the areas for which you don't have inside access, inserting a long hose from, say a removed window, to the bottom of the delam, pumping epoxy as you pull the hose up and out, perhaps a few times, then bracing the outside wall straight? I realize you have done a great job with the correct and thorough methods you are using, but with your experience, I value your thoughts on alternate repair strategies.

[Tom Y]

Hi Shelly,
Alas, the interior is still not very "pretty", it will be though, and I'm used to documenting the progress, so keep the above link handy and check back. As the interior comes together, more photos will be posted in that Bigfoot 5th wheel pic folder. After the bathroom renovation, the entire ceiling will get done, then the wall "Dressing" will go on, basic contact paper from the seam line down will be a pattern, and above will be plain contact paper above. Our goal is to lighten up the interior from the old dark wood colors that was in it from the factory. The floors will get either bamboo or cork vinyl flooring planks, and new carpeting on the upper level.
Tom Y

[Tom Y]

Hello Cam,
There really was not that much re-laminating to be done on the old paneling, the large area that I replaced the interior paneling on had delamed wood paneling and a bit of rot along the bottom, so that panel had to be replaced. Also I have found that when the foam is delamed from the fiberglass the glass is terribly weak, allowing the body shape to be a issue. The roof is cambered so it is tough to hold the shape correctly while the epoxy sets, but the outside to inside clamping would work fine on the walls, their pretty flat. I have been using the giant syringe with a plastic tube idea quite a bit, anywhere the paneling is in good shape but delamed from the foam. The glue the factory used is still holding the fiberglass to the foam well, except in the bathroom ceiling, there the foam was broken up from stress applied from the roof, with no paneling left bonded to the foam. That makes the foam the critical structrual component. The fiberglass, foam, paneling when bonded properly makes a very strong structure, but take away that paneling on the inside and it is very weak.
Something for everyone to be aware of, Bigfoot DID NOT use waterproof glue paneling during the construction, so allowing moisture to reside in these campers is a real bad idea. I really got lucky this one was in as good a shape as it was, very little rot in the paneling, none in the floor. I've replaced all the necessary paneling, and still have half a sheet of the paneling left.
The bolt thru the wall clamp idea is good, I just can't bring myself to drilling more holes thru the body, something that is left from my boat building era I suppose.
Tom Y