Keystone Construction Practices -This Just Gets Better

[Bob Landry]

This may be a long post, but a good read.

I've been in email communication with a guy that also owns a new 277RL. Ours are new and we have been talking about problems we are running across and how to fix them. When he tells me what he fixed, I go and check mine, and I usually have the same issue. The latest is a goodie.

His latest issue is a leaking door on the pass-through with water standing in the flange of the door. Sounds like a leaking gasket? Read on. He replaced gaskets and that did not repair the leak. So, as usual, yesterday I go out to check all of my doors for leaks. I started with the baggage door on the bedroom slide. The outside edge looked like it was adequately sealed with a bead of silicon around the edge of the frame. I opened the door, pulled on it slightly and the frame and silicon pulled away from the wall of the trailer. LEAK!!!
I removed the four screws holding the door frame and pulled on it. It literally fell off the wall into my hands. At installation, there was a bead of sealant applied around the inside of the frame about the size of a strand of spaghetti. It was so small, that when the door was set in place, the caulk did not touch anything and it was completely in tact and undisturbed around the inside of the plastic door frame. I pulled on it and it came off as one long string. Bottom line, there was no way that thin string of silicon was sealing anything because it did not even touch the cutout for the door. The small amount of silicon remaining from the edge of the frame was easily scraped off with my fingernail.

The fix.. I've repaired dozens of leaking ports on boats, so I know the drill. I cleaned every bit of silicon residue off of the frame and the side of the trailer and wiped it all down with denatured alcohol. I then laid a 1/2" wide bead of silicon around the frame of the door. That sounds like a lot of sealant and it is. There is a lot of waste from the tube, because you want enough on there so when you set the frame in place, the excess squeezes out around the frame. If it doesn't squeeze out all the way around, you didn't get a good seal and you've wasted your time and materials. My guess is that out of a tube of sealant, half of it will get wiped off and discarded. Then the wall and door frame edge got cleaned up and it's done. Also, I use exterior grade door and window silicon that has to be cleaned up with mineral spirits, not the latex stuff. I just don't think the cheap stuff will hold up to the weather and it's not going to be painted. The silicon I use is around $6 a tube at HD, but considering the cost of delamination repair, that's not a lot of money.

My guess is that every door and window on every Keystone trailer is done this same way. I would estimate that at this rate of usage, Keystone sealed, or attempted to seal, everything on the trailer with two tubes of caulk.(The bean counters at work) I used almost a whole tube on one door. Like every other industry, it appears that this one is controlled by the bean counters. They know, to the penny, how much material and labor goes into each unit, and it's very tightly controlled. The boat builders are the same way. A specific amount of resin is allowed to do the fiberglass layup, and if too much is used in one place, some other area goes without, and the unit moves down the line.

I'm writing all of this because this is a problem that is going to have to be addressed by us, the owners. Good luck getting Keystone to step up and do all of this under warranty because we don't like the waythey built the trailer and we THINK it might leak. Well, it's not a matter of if it will leak. it eventually will, and all it takes is a little bit of flex cause by towing or weather to break what is already a poorly crafted seal. If you don't think so, go back and read the threads by people with delaminating trailers that are just out of warranty.

This is not a rail on Keystone. I really like my trailer and I think it represents a good value for the money. It just suffers from the usual production line issues. It takes about four minutes to make the cutout and install a door the way they did it. I spent 45 minutes on just one, so think what that would do to a production schedule and the cost of a new unit. So, it's up to us to either fix what they didn't do, or sell it and pay for a custom one-off trailer with no guarrantee that it won't be built the same way.

I hope this information saves someone a healthy repair bill, because fiberglass repair ain't cheap. I'm going out today to do a couple of more doors and I'll edit this post tonight with photos to illustrate what I've talked about.

Edited to add photos

This is Keystones way of sealing around doors and windows. Very small bead of sealant that barely if at all, touches the fiberglass around the door cutout. This is the second door. The first one had less silicon on it than this one.

http://www.keystoneforums.com/attachments/photobucket/img_17434_0_9eadeec91673913ff6414c3676936f22.jpg

This is one of the doors set back in the custout, secured and ready to be cleaned of excess caulk. Notice how the caulk squeezes out around the frame. This insures a good seal all the way around the door. Any pinhole voids around the edge can be filled with some caulk on your finger after the tape is removed. Everything was wiped down with denatured alcohol before laying in the silicon to get good adhesion.

http://www.keystoneforums.com/attachments/photobucket/img_17434_1_998675a7b1f8982e8ed9fb0f8d010630.jpg

This is one of the pass through doors, tape and excess caulk removed, everythingcleaned up with mineral spirits.

http://www.keystoneforums.com/attachments/photobucket/img_17434_2_67da3fab77d351a7477a0bcf2f06896d.jpg

[hankaye]

Bob Landry, Howdy;

Thanks Bud. Great post.
Where was yours built Indiania or Oregon?

We have been having the annual Monsoon rains in the desert.
Will check into this first dry period.

hankaye

[Bob Landry]

Not sure where it was built. I'm guessing Indiana.

[Bob Landry]

Original post edited with photos.

[pirates55]

I have 2 windows leaking on my trailer now. I was on here trying to learn how difficult it is to pull the window out and re seal it. Looks like it will pretty easy to get out. When the rain was blowing this past week while I was in the trailer on vacation. I noticed water running across my counter. Looks like I need to pull every window and put lots of caulk around them.

[pirates55]

I guess to remove the windows its as simple as removing the screws and pulling it out????

[Bob Landry]

I guess to remove the windows its as simple as removing the screws and pulling it out????

I havn't looked at the windows, but there are no fasteners on the outside so I'm assuming that it's held in place by the interior trim with screws going into the window from the inside. I know I'm eventually going to do all of mine because there's no reason to think that any of them were done differently than the ones I've looked at so far. It needs to be done pretty quick, though. Once water starts wicking down into the luan, it will delaminate in pretty short order. I think Keystone does it this way figuring that they won't spend a lot of money on materials and labor building it and most people won't even suspect there are issues intil the warranty runs out. There are many posts on here with people asking if Keystone will fix delamination on a trailer that's "Just out of warranty" The key word is proactive. Don'r go chap on silicon. Get the best you can buy and use plenty of it.

[pirates55]

Thanks Bob do you use the Good Stuff from Home Depot or Lowes or do you use specific stuff from an RV store.

[Bob Landry]

I guess to remove the windows its as simple as removing the screws and pulling it out????

I havn't looked at the windows, but there are no fasteners on the outside so I'm assuming that it's held in place by the interior trim with screws going into the window from the inside. I know I'm eventually going to do all of mine because there's no reason to think that any of them were done differently than the ones I've looked at so far. It needs to be done pretty quick, though. Once water starts wicking down into the luan, it will delaminate in pretty short order. I think Keystone does it this way figuring that they won't spend a lot of money on materials and labor building it and most people won't even suspect there are issues intil the warranty runs out. There are many posts on here with people asking if Keystone will fix delamination on a trailer that's "Just out of warranty" The key word is proactive. I wouldn't have thought to start looking at and fixing all of these things if not for emailing a guy with a trailer like mine and hearing about his issues.

[Bob Landry]

Thanks Bob do you use the Good Stuff from Home Depot or Lowes or do you use specific stuff from an RV store.

Everything I use either comes from Home Depot or from my marine parts distributor that I buy from. For small jobs like this, I'll use Home Depot. If I'm doing a serious electrical upgrade where I need breakers or panels, then I'll use Marinco or Blue Sea or something similar.

[ktmracer]

FWIW, be careful what silicone sealant you use. many of the silicone sealants don't adhere and seal well to fiberglass and will let water through. Most of the RV mfg, keystone included use Tremcro's Trempro 645 adhesive sealant. My RV dealer, that I have a great deal of trust in says it's one of the best sealants for use with fiberglass.

I can verify that there are silcone sealants that look like they adhere to fiberglass or aluminum, but peel off way to easy and let water in.

[Bob Landry]

FWIW, be careful what silicone sealant you use. many of the silicone sealants don't adhere and seal well to fiberglass and will let water through. Most of the RV mfg, keystone included use Tremcro's Trempro 645 adhesive sealant. My RV dealer, that I have a great deal of trust in says it's one of the best sealants for use with fiberglass.

I can verify that there are silcone sealants that look like they adhere to fiberglass or aluminum, but peel off way to easy and let water in.

In that case, Keystone needs to evaluate the type of sealant/adhesive they use because when I pulled the doors off, the silicon peeled away from the plastic door frame and the fiberglass side of the trailer with hardly any residue left.The ket to successful application of any sealant is surface preparation. When I did my doors, I removed every trace of the old stuff and wiped everything down with denatured alcohol.
In my early days of marine repair, I would replace ports using silicon at the instructions of the manufacturer. The polyeurathane and polysulfide base sealants would attack the plastic on the frames while silicon would not, and a good grade of silicon such as 3M had no problems with adhesion. I can see where some of the bargain rack stuff may not perform well.

I looked up the product you mentioned and only found where it described it as a silicon sealant. It probably is a good product, but only if applied in sufficient amounts. This is definitly not the case with Keystone. The best sealant in the world is worthless when laid down in 1/8" beads