Hello all! We just purchased a 1989 17 foot
Bigfoot trailer about 2 weeks ago. It's Our first trailer but I have spent a fair amount of time over the last couple of years lurking on the site trying to get a handle on what issues these trailers may have but don't recall seeing anything quite like this in my travels here so I figured I better ask and see what i should do about it.
Basically the last couple weeks I have been slowly tackling all the little issues and thought I would tackle one more today but have hit a road block. I had planned to use a decal removal wheel to take off the faded and cracked decals then use barkeepers friend to clean and Zep high gloss floor finish to bring out the shine... Well as usual I have all these great plans and then I barely get started and find I have hit what appears to me to be an insurmountable snag.
I started using the decal removal wheel and then noticed that under the decals were all of these cracks. Also I had expected that under the decals would be bright clean gell coat that would not match the rest of my faded trailer and ghosting. It certainly doesn't match but it certainly isn't shiny under here. It's bright white and dull except where the decals were splitting. Where the decals were splitting more closely resembles the color of the trailer. What do i do about all these cracks? What caused them? The shrinkage of the decals over the years? Is it related to gell coat erosion? It's not smooth either its very slightly raised where the cracks are. Yikes, I have a feeling this isn't going to go my way lol...