Rebuild--rear-ended Uhaul CT13

[groys02]

One more chunk done, in the weekend after Christmas. [but first, can I upload a few photos?] Tried repeatedly... no go.

Before I reinstalled the inner shell, I glued some 1/4" polystyrene insulation on the semi-flat area surrounding the rear seating area.... thinking it'd have a higher R-value than the Reflectix, which I will figure to add in later.

Once that was done, I removed the line of screws that I'd installed previously to hold the plastic strips in place that span the cut-line... the glue on them long-since set up and holding well. Then I spread adhesive on the remaining 1/2 of the plastic strip and set 1/2 of the back shell in... screwed it to the plastic strip, and glued in the other 1/2 of the back shell... and glued the inner shell to the outer shell at the rear window opening, and clamped that together. [with boards added to the clamps, so that the surface the back window mounts to will hopefully "set up" nice and flat]

Probably be a few weeks before I return to the work--then I'll start bevelling the seams that I just glued, and add some f/g matte & resin to the inside face of things--just because I don't want to trust the adhesive to be a forever-type repair. Once the f/g is set up, I'll grind it down to slightly below the surface of the surrounding fiberglass and finish up the filling with regular auto-filler. Then I can primer it, block the primer, and try out that enamel color blend I messed with last summer.

All for now... best wishes for the new year......... Gary

[groys02]

For what it's worth... I posted this same basic info on the U-Haul Facebook site, so those of you with a foot in both U-Haul worlds can see the pictures over there. [I still assume I'll be able to upload images again once the holidays & school vacations are past, and the load on the local cell tower diminishes.]

[Borrego Dave]

Good move with the extra matte & FG Gary

[CindyL]

Gary's pix: Well, at least one. I am at a campground, so bandwidth is not great.

CindyL

[CindyL]

The last image was Gary's second one. Here is the first one. Maybe one at a time will get them all. CindyL

[CindyL]

Can't get the third one to work. Not going to resize it right now. I am off to the pool.

CindyL

[groys02]

Thanks a million, Cindy! 2 out of 3's plenty good... get back to enjoying your camping!

Gary

[groys02]

Got a little more work done on the camper last night. I wanted to get the vertical, center flanges of the inside shell bonded to the other shell... and then the edges where I cut out the inner panels around the spare well bonded to the spare well. The vertical center flanges wanted to flare forward unevenly, so I drilled a 1/8" hole into the flange where the outer shell halves meet, and used a screw through a fender washer to draw them close to the outside shell. [I put a rubber washer between inner and outer shells, to leave a modest gap for the f/g paste to be squeezed into.]

I mixed up 8oz of resin & catalyst. Before adding the Cabosil to thicken it up to a dense paste, I used a brush to just "prime" the edges of what I was joining--to wet them good with straight resin. [I'd already scuffed them thoroughly with coarse sandpaper.] Then thickened up the resin with the Cabosil until the "peaks" from stirring it in the cup would just stay as they were--not slumping down or "flowing". Put the paste into a sandwich baggie... cut one corner off, about enough for my little finger to poke through... squeezed a thick ribben of the paste all along the seams... smoothed and/or radiused it with body filler spreaders, and smoothed a little further with a cheap brush lightly dragged along the seams.

And then before coming into the house, put a heat lamp [500W bulb] 3-4' back from the outside of the camper, so as to warm the area slightly more than the shop was. [It's pretty cool out this way just now---0deg F as I'm typing this up, with a good breeze to boot.]

All for now. I'll try adding pictures again... if it doesn't work, they'll be over on the U-Haul Facebook site shortly.

Gary

[CindyL]

Here is one of Gary's pix. It is the most important one. I can't get the second one to upload. I will take a screen shot and see if that version uploads.

Cindy

[groys02]

Thanks, Cindy! You're a blessing once again.

[CindyL]

I cannot get the second one to upload, Gary. I even reduced it to 1 inch to make it smaller. Next time, I will make all images into one. Since I only seem to get one at a time to work, maybe that is the answer.

I would appreciate a moderator here explaining what we need to do to make this work. I flipping teach technology and am getting frustrated here.



CindyL

[groys02]

Cindy,
Thanks again for trying... & helping. I'm hardly a "techie", but I feel like I've tried several things to work with this problem, with no success.
I know we have a mediocre internet link where we live, speed/volume-wise, but I don't have any trouble uploading pics to the Facebook site, or to the Anglia forum I participate on. I'm inclined to think something's changed with the FGRV site that could explain this....... waiting until today to try posting [young people back in school--theoretically better service for us] didn't make any difference either.
When I check FGRV for new postings, I often just go to "Manufacturers" and select "U-Haul" from the drop down menu. I PM'd the "Tech Admin" shown at the top of the U-Haul listings page a few days ago... no response just yet.

Note: I'm not trying to "blame" anyone in particular... or this site in general. I've gotten any number of good ideas here, and general encouragement as well. If there's something I need to do on my end of things, I'll sure give it a try.
Gary

[FRED SMAILES]

Just read through your thread Gary. Really enjoyed your simple straight forward methods of repair and your "inventiveness" for the spare tire.
Looking forward to seeing it in paint.
Fred

[groys02]

Thanks, Fred,
I've been trying to "keep it real"... plus, I'm not really a professional anyway, so no point in making my efforts sound like rocket science.
Nowadays I am getting closer to paint, and that is exciting. I think I have a paint mix that'll come close to the original gel-coat color the U-Haul's were "born with"... be interesting to see how well that works.

It'll be a little bass-ackwards, but I think I'll put off the painting till closer to spring, and work on window seals & channel re-do's before the painting of the whole exterior skin. [I will probably paint the rear 1/3 of the interior once the repairs are done---I guess that'll tell me how well the paint matches. And whether I can transition smoothly from new paint to old gel-coat.]

Meanwhile, back to the shop... gotta make up for taking the afternoon off for reviewing retirement cottage plans, and getting new glasses!
Gary

[Donna D.]

Originally Posted by CindyL

I cannot get the second one to upload, Gary. I even reduced it to 1 inch to make it smaller. Next time, I will make all images into one. Since I only seem to get one at a time to work, maybe that is the answer.

I would appreciate a moderator here explaining what we need to do to make this work. I flipping teach technology and am getting frustrated here.



CindyL

This one?

[CindyL]

Yes, Donna, thanks.

I fail to understand why it is not possible to upload 2 images. I find it frustrating. Whatever limits are being put on the upload of Gary's images is causing the loss of a lot of really good information


CindyL

[Donna D.]

I don't know Cindy. I'm still using the default skin and I can upload multiple images:

[Glenn Baglo]

I thought there was an issue with trying to upload multiple images from an iPhone or iPad. As in, you can't.
I mail pix from iPhone to my MacBook, edit them there and then post up to four at a time.

[CindyL]

Donna,

I use that too, and one of Gary's images will upload, but the second one will not.

Glenn, I was editing Gary's image too on my Mac too. Next time, I am going to take them into Graphic Converter first, see if I can make them into a different format, different size, and if need be, into one image.




Cindy

[groys02]

Well.........
All this discussion got me to wondering if I could bring a file into Corel PhotoPaint and save it into a different format. Did that just now--changing from jpg to Windows Bitmap. And it seemed to work--at least now it didn't "fail to upload".

This was a goofy shot I took after filling in the seams/corners... went back in the camper to turn off the light I had inside, and when I did that, the heat lamp from outside lit up the fiberglass in a striking way.....
Gary

Hmmm... when I did a "preview" just now, I see an "attachment", but no image per se........... guess I'll just "submit", and see what I got.