I bought my
Bigfoot trailer in a rush. I'd had my eye on Bigfoots ever since I started looking into trailers for my wife and I. Everything about them made sense, especially in regards to the 2 piece
fiberglass shell. I thought them to be leak proof. The fact that every single time one came up
for sale on the island it
sold within a day reaffirmed that idea in my head. So when I finally got to a 1994
Bigfoot 17' before any other prospective buyers did, I looked at the condition of the gel coat, frame,
windows and
fridge, and I looked for anything that was staring me in the face as wrong.
I was ignorantly blissful with my rose coloured glasses on. I bought the trailer for full asking price not knowing what I was walking into. I didn't know trailers well then, I didn't know what to look for. I certainly do now.
Our first camping trip just so happened to be in the rainy season, that's when I was tipped off to the potential rot in my
Bigfoot. All the
windows were dripping. I thought it was condensation, but it was leaking. I found a soft spot on the floor near the front dinette that was conveniently covered by a floor mat. Then I noticed some shabby wall paneling that didn't match the rest of the trailer, and during our camping trip I started to poke around. I found squishy wet doorskin all around the front end of the trailer. My heart sank. I'd bought a basket case.
I fixed it.
If you're there now, despair no more, look no further, here's a handy guide to help you fix your walls (floors in another post)
First, find those
leaks:
Remove the affected
windows. The windows pull off by removing the screws from the inner flange, then pulling out the inner flange, then going to the outside of the window and (with a plastic prybar, not metal) pry the window off the trailer. You may need to work your plastic prybar around the entire perimeter of the window before it wants to pop off, especially if it has butyl tape. Mine didn't, they just had foam tape which is why they leaked.
For now, run a strip of butyl tape around your open window holes, then stick a piece of clear plastic (6mil poly is ideal) to the butyl tape to create a sealed temporary window. This temporary window will be needed to keep the interior of your trailer dry and warm while you're taking the trailer walls apart.
The interior repairs:
I started the interior by taking everything apart. I did my walls in one go, and my floors in another. This post is about the walls.
The walls:
I had to take out the front dinette, and the forward upper cabinet to access the rotten walls.
I removed the table. This just literally unhooks from the walls. Stash it in your garage or somewhere dry outside of the trailer.
The front dinette seats act as storage from the outside compartment doors, the outsides and insides are skinned in 1/8" plywood and the framing is 3/4" x 1" solid wood. The seat top is 1/2" plywood and a piano hinge. Remove the seat top as a single assembly. There should just be some screws on the outboard most side of the seat holding the whole thing onto the framework. Remove the inner 1/8" plywood pieces with a prybar and a delicate hand. They're just tacked on with Brad nails so they should pop off fairly easily. Label the pieces and the frame as you remove them for easy reassembly. You'll now see screws going through the wooden framework of the dinette seat into the floor and walls. Use your impact driver (or drill or screwdriver) to unwind them all. Label everything as you take it apart. Stash everything outside of the trailer.
Next comes the upper cabinet. It's a real bugger to pull off and I ended up needing to remove the 1/8" plywood from the inside and outside of the cabinet bottom to get all of the screws out. Remove the doors of the cabinet. If your Bigfoot has a stereo then remove that too, as well as your speakers. There was also wiring going through mine for a
light fixture. Be sure to disconnect your
battery and shore power before you cut or disconnect any wires. Label the connections so you can butt them back together later. The cabinet is screwed to the ceiling, the walls (front and both sides) and the cabinet it's butted up against. If it won't come down there are more screws holding it on somewhere. Don't yank on it, it's barely holding itself together and you can easily break it. Look for more screws or bolts holding it on. Then it can all come down. Stash it outside of the trailer.
Now everything is ready to start tackling those rotten walls:
Next step is the corner bracing. They have a piece of 1/8" plywood over top the 3/4" plywood brace, so gently pry off the 1/8" trim and save it for reinstall if it's not rotten. If it's rotten save it for templating your replacement piece. Then the corner braces themselves, they're "stitched" onto the 1/8" plywood skin with several staples, do your best to pry these off without damaging them or the walls that they're butted to. If it's all rotten then pry them off and save them for templating your replacement parts.
Next comes the wall skin. I used a 3" flex putty knife and a hammer start to pry/chisel the 1/8" plywood off of the styrene foam. If the plywood is rotten like mine then this is messy. There may be mold in here, so wear a respirator or at the very least a dust mask. Keep at it, this can take a while.
Next it's time to assess wet styrene foam. I chose to remove anything that was wet as I didn't think I could dry it out in a reasonable amount of time. BE CAREFUL. The
fiberglass underneath is only 1/8" thick chopped strand. This can delaminate if you're too rough when you remove the foam and adhesive. I used the same 3" flex putty knife and hammer to pry/scrape off the 1" styrene foam. Be sure to cut square joints so you can have an easy to cut shape for installation of new foam.
There's also structural 1" plywood throughout the walls of the trailer. It's either for mounting exterior fittings (like the
awning rail, front window rock guard, windows, exterior hatches etc) interior fittings (table, cabinets etc') or a substrate for the screws that hold the seam of the trailer together. If this is soft or even the least bit rotten looking then replace it while the walls are open. It's a critical part of the structure of your Bigfoot and it needs to be in solid shape. You can use solid wood, buy 1" plywood, or go the route that I did and laminate a piece of 1/2" and a piece of 5/8" plywood together to get a true 1" piece of plywood. The windows are the trickiest bit, I used a combo of solid wood and plywood for those frames, and I primed them with (white)
paint before installation too. I glued my plywood back onto the fibreglass with sikaflex 291, but some PL premium will do the job well too.
Now let everything dry out. I put a couple of fans in my unit and heater and left it for a few days. Once everything is dry it's time to start installing the foam board. You can buy the 1" polystyrene foam from home Depot or Lowe's, it's not cheap but you'll definitely need it. There are two options for gluing the foam to your
fiberglass and your wallskin to your foam. You can buy PL300 foam board caulking, or you can use a water based contact cement. I opted for the contact cement to get a fast bond, which was critical for attaching the wall skin. I also used a high density 1" fibreglass insulation (yellow) for the corners of the trailer where I couldn't get the foam board to fit in nicely. It was superior to the original insulation by far.
For the wallskin I used two different materials, but I would recommend veneered 1/8" plywood for its appearance and cost effectiveness. If you're going to try to match your existing interior then make sure your veneer is red oak. You can stain it to try to match the dark fake oak paper laminate, but I just oiled mine and then treated it with a rubbed on polyurethane. After I cut it to fit, oiled it, and put a finish on it then I glued the plywood to the foam board. The only disadvantage to using contact cement is that you need to ensure you place your plywood in exactly the right spot, that instant bond isn't forgiving when it comes to relocate a piece thats already been bonded. If you're not confident in your hand skills, PL300 is a better option for you, but you'll need to find some sort of way to shore up the plywood to ensure a good bond.
After all that is done, reassemble as you disassembled. I took the open walls as an opportunity to run new wiring for a vent fan, you may choose to do so while everything is open. I also made some new pieces of trim to clean everything up a bit.
My
awning rail was also leaking, remove the screws from the
awning rail one by one (you'll need to partially unfurl your awning to access them) fill the holes with a good RTV sealant and reset the screws back into the trailer. This is a cheap and easy fix, it would have been best to remove the entire awning rail and re-set it back on with butyl tape but I didn't want to remove my awning entirely, so this worked.
Now install those windows, remove the butyl tape and poly patch and clean off the fibreglass as well as the aluminum wild a mild solvent like isopropyl alcohol, apply butyl tape and seat the windows back in. Then install the interior frames and tighten the screws (NOT TOO HARD).
Bing bang boom, now your trailer is fixed and ready to hit the road!