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82 Sunrader Floor Replacement


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Hello Everyone,

i recently purchased a Toyota sunrader to take out camping and decided to restore it to its best possible condition.So i started tearing everything out and once i got to the bare floor i noticed a little sag from the entry way to the bathroom area post-8073-0-97964500-1421539399_thumb.jp.before taking a skill saw to the floor for replacement i decided to read about this fiberglass shell before making any decisions on how to approach this step. later i noticed a separation from the wood in the rear and have no clue how this may of happened or how to repair since it's in the rear with the fiberglasspost-8073-0-53649300-1421539211_thumb.jp any help from you veterans would help immensely. i am a new user and would like to ask for any help from people restoring their rigs "sunraders" in particular since i own a 18' 82 toyota sunrader post-8073-0-72072700-1421539428_thumb.jpThis sagging is only from the entrance way it no longer sags in the sink or dining area but there is a line or crack running across or im not sure if its another board they laid down during assembly.Again thank you for taking the time to read my post and feel free to help me in any way that you can on how to approach the floor or any other area you may have knowlege in. thanks again.

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I'm probably not a good one to ask, since I have much worse sag, separation and rot in the floor of my Chinook, and I just left it as-is. The floor was just not a project I was willing to tackle. My guess is that it's just fine and you could probably ignore it.

But if you're not the sort of person to ignore these sorts of things, it's certainly not a bad idea to fix it. You'll just have to wait until someone more experienced speaks up as to whether it's an expensive and unnecessary idea.

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thank you Montana chinook for at least taking the time to reply, i had much time to debate what approach i would like to take and i don't think i want to disturb the stock floor i might just leave it worse. i'm thinking about just adding a board down on top and bolt it down to reinforce the original one and use wood seal and fiberglass resin to weatherproof it. this is the most likely step i'm going to take if i don't get any help i'm anxious to make this thing my second home and i don't want to cut corners i want to do it right hopefully last another 30 years.

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I dont plan to mess with the bathroom board only going to sand down,seal and resin for reinforcement i dont want a loose connection to the black water tank or the shower drain if you see here the carpet line is where the bathroom sits

post-8073-0-97964500-1421539399_thumb.jp so that area will just be original it really doesnt look bad im just picky i guess. anyways any pointers or ANY advice will help thanks for looking.

.

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OK do not cut any of the remaining floor out. Underneath that is foam and you will have nothing to attach plywood to support your floor better. Most people put down 1/2 inch plywood over the existing floor and attach with screws every 6 to 8 inches all over the floor. This had a pic that shows construction. Your floor is just glued and fiberglassed to the side walls of the camper. Main strength is that bowed wood you see so adding more support that is the key

http://toyotamotorhome.org/forums/index.php?app=gallery&image=995

Linda S

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no idea the flooring was this simple i will definitely slab another 1/2" board on top Linda thank you for showing me that booklet it really helped me see how this shell was put together. do you think staining it and coating it with fiberglass resin is good or is it just overkill? i expect this to make the floor somewhat weatherproof at least give it another 15-20 years.


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What you'll want to realize if you get hung up on how many views vs replies, is that this site has...thousands of members. Some just lurk and don't post. Some know a little about some stuff. Some know a lot about very specific stuff. Some know a lot about everything. But almost everybody likes to click on new topics (especially in the project area which is meant for posting projects you've done, rather than questions on repairs) to look at photos of people's projects.

Of all the people viewing, a very small percentage are going to have knowledge about something like gutting a camper. Personally I'd rather wait for them to post, instead of a bunch of people who don't know the answer, just posting for the sake of posting, cluttering up the thread, kind of like I'm doing now :)

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One of the causes of this problem is lack of support between the floor and the chassis. Jack up yours and crawl around underneath and look how things are mounted and what you can do for more support.

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Good for you for waiting before sawing, fortune favors the patient RV owner. Congratulations on your purchase. There are many good RV’ers here. Some of us believe in very thorough fixes including improving design, some believe the most important thing is to get as many hours on the road as possible and don’t care much about condition and some who want to fabricate and use recycled materials to cut costs.

Read the previous posts! As I have said before, I wish I did. That said, my 2 cents here :The front “sag” is common to many Sunraders, due IHO likely to the combo of the high-traffic area near the entry/pass from cab to coach (any area of a SR low traffic?) and it’s proximity to the shower, hence errant moisture leakage to floor. The area of the rear separation photo appears to be water-stained, even up to rear wall. (Note also where water pump is situated) Leaks or moisture are a primary RV destroyer, remember this well when you do your fixes and re-plumbing. Fixing symptoms will do you little good if you don’t address the primary problems causing them. Another blurb, one of the reasons I do not generally advise folks is because I don’t know their work skill-set , safety practices or proficiency with tools. For instance, I have used a cutting attachment for my angle-grinder known as a “Lancelot”. It’s essentially a chain-saw chain wrapped around a circular blade. It’s a VERY aggressive and unforgiving tool and an unreal time-saver. I would not advise many of my friends to wield this thing, but it was a huge help to me in my restoration. Oh yeah, the floor thing….. I would get a creeper and carefully examine the bracing under the flooring of your vehicle. Look for logical problems. Is the road barrier peeling back or rotting? Take a look at everything under there, howzit look? Take pictures of problems so you don’t have to crawl under a million times to re-think things. Under my Sunrader, the flooring cross-braces were bent and I didn’t realize it until I looked at them 3 or 4 times. Anyway, some people live with funky floors, some cover them with plywood. Depends on your tolerance for that stuff, talent and cash-flow. Some people have welded in bracing to help arrest the primary condition of what I consider to be design flaws. Disclaimer here! The gas tank lives under there and people have lost their entire motorhome to bad welding practices!! Again, it’s all here in previous posts.

Good Luck, and not sure WTH a “troll” is, but I don’t think I am one, for this week at least.

TG

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Error This upload failed

i started the thread with several photos. i have been resizing my photos thats not the issue it just wont upload i dont know why.i cant send photos via private messages either and the other day i replied to a message with pictures perfectly.i dont believe its on my end, i dont know. :help:

Edited by 82rader
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Below, in the reply area, click on "More reply options".

Look below the reply window. What does it say next to the "Attach this file" button?

When I first started posting here, it would say something about the max amount of data you have available.

I got around it by deleting photos I had uploaded previously. Then I could load a few more photos.

After a while, (couple of days?) the limit was magically lifted.

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if i have posted to many photos and went over what i'm allowed how do i erase my old ones? so i can upload new ones i don't see any options to erase in my media

I don't think that's the issue. There are many big projects on this site with hundreds of pictures. Sorry but I don't know the answer to this.

Linda S

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if i have posted to many photos and went over what i'm allowed how do i erase my old ones? so i can upload new ones i don't see any options to erase in my media

Go to a post you have made with photos. There should be an "edit" button at the bottom. You should be able to do it there.

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I don't think that's the issue. There are many big projects on this site with hundreds of pictures. Sorry but I don't know the answer to this.

Linda S

Linda, I think this is a newbie situation. Maybe Greg or somebody has to approve the poster's first few photos? I don't know (shrug).

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Linda, I think this is a newbie situation. Maybe Greg or somebody has to approve the poster's first few photos? I don't know (shrug).

Well Greg is rarely on the site and I'm a moderator. I know of no place where I need to approve stuff. I can only delete inappropriate stuff. Try again tomorrow. Don't delete any of your other Photos. They were not high pixel so can't be causing the problem.

Linda S

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Well Greg is rarely on the site and I'm a moderator. I know of no place where I need to approve stuff. I can only delete inappropriate stuff. Try again tomorrow. Don't delete any of your other Photos. They were not high pixel so can't be causing the problem.

Linda S

OK, I just know what worked for me when I had the same problem as 82rader.

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The very encouraging thing I see when looking at the photos of the floor in your Sunrader is that I am not seeing any rot. A few water stains but no rot.

Something important to note is how that layer of plywood you are looking was installed. It is fiber-glassed to the wall and to the wheel well at the outside edges. But along those seams you are having issues with it was stapled to a strip of wood right below the seam line. That strip below the seams is not doing very much in the way of support other than keeping the pieces level to each other. It looks to me as if the separation between the pieces is mostly a matter of the staples lost their grip into the strip underneath so now the panels move independently of each other along the joins.

Looking at your original photos the "crack" in the forward area is just a seam between two pieces of plywood. They ran the plywood pieces lengthwise in that area. As plywood is only 4 feet wide a single sheet does not span the width.

At the rear on the side to side seam that happens right about where the front rear dinette seat went across from side to side. That is normal as the floor installation in my 1980 Sunrader also looks that way.

As to the fix, I think you just need to put another layer of plywood over the original to stiffen the floor. I really don't see anything that indicates the need for any other type of repair.

In order to save weight on my Sunrader floor fix I did not double the areas that were going to be under cabinetry as no one is going to be standing or walking there. But I did run the flooring just under the edge of where my new cabinets tie down to the floor as that gave a better grip length for screwing the cabinets in place.

This is what the floor doubler we created for my 1980 18' Sunrader looked like just before we installed it. It was made from a single 4' x 8' sheet of 1/2" marine grade plywood. We put a layer of fiberglass cloth and resin on both sides. In this photo what was happening is we had snapped a chalk line grid for the locations where we were going to drill clearance holes for screws. In the photo my friend was putting a circle around the intersection of the grid where the hole would be drilled. A clearance hole means that the diameter of the hole is very slightly larger than the diameter of the screw threads that will pass through it. Because the screw thread does not then engage into the doubler it will more easily pull the original plywood floor tight up against the new doubler. You do need to use a good strong adhesive between the double and the original floor so you have a continuous bond between the two. The large circular holes you see are at the locations where there are carriage bolts that tied the original plywood floor to the frame below. I saved the holes I sawed out and then dished the underside of them to clear the bolt heads to create hole plugs that fit flush to the surface of the doubler. I wanted the bolts to be easy to get at if I ever need to replace them or would want to remove the shell from the truck frame.

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After installing this doubler floor my Sunrader floor now feels very solid, no major sag or bounce.

I keep my photos around 100kb size and use 75 dpi for resolution when posting on the internet. Even basic photo editing programs will let you resize your photos. Sometimes the trouble that happens when posting photos that keep getting rejected has to do with how the file name was created. Try renaming your photo if you have it appropriately sized but have trouble uploading it. Use a short, simple name with no spaces or special characters in it, I have found that is often the answer to issues with photos not uploading.

Edited by corbin k
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  • 2 weeks later...

thank you all for you're support and advice..corbin as always you are real in detail with your responses i appreciate that ..i have been doing some slow progress on the sunrader and its coming along it did put down a new floor and secured it in just some screws more along the side would secure real well and some screws just didnt want to grip on to anything also used liquid nails then switched to 3 x loctite i saw it does better results and i want to confirm that indeed it does. i also made new framing around the windows and stained the wood with deck sealant for water protection if any were to seep through i will take more photos of the progress and will try to post them up ...thanks again for the encouraging words everyone<3.

Edited by 82rader
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thank you all for you're support and advice..corbin as always you are real in detail with your responses i appreciate that ..i have been doing some slow progress on the sunrader and its coming along it did put down a new floor and secured it in just some screws more along the side would secure real well and some screws just didnt want to grip on to anything also used liquid nails then switched to 3 x loctite i saw it does better results and i want to confirm that indeed it does. i also made new framing around the windows and stained the wood with deck sealant for water protection if any were to seep through i will take more photos of the progress and will try to post them up ...thanks again for the encouraging words everyone<3.

Once the adhesive grips the screws are somewhat redundant anyway ;)

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. i noticed a separation from the wood in the rear and have no clue how this may of happened or how to repair since it's in the rear

Many if not most motorhomes use a multi-ply assembly for the floor. Sunrader uses on the floor - from the bottom up - 1/8" plywood, then 3/4" foam, then 3/8" plywood. When laid together and glued here and there, it makes a pretty strong floor for something only 1 1/4" thick and with only 1/2" of wood, total.

If you want to cut out and patch any areas and want to keep the seams closed - here's one way. Cut out the 3/4" foam just enough to glue in 3/4" strips of wood where ever the new seams will be. Then put in new plywood but NOT the cheap junk like found at Home Depot or Lowes. A high quality marine-type or cabinet-grade, 4-ply Fir or Birch plywood only 3/8" thick will be stronger then cheap 3-ply pine like many chain-stores sell. It will also be less inclined to separate or warp at the seams. Glue and staple in against the 3/4" strips you glued in.

Getting good plywood makes a HUGE difference and is not a place to cut corners in a motorhome where there are no conventional floor-joists and keeping weight down is important.

Here are a few I did recently. Not a Sunrader. One is a Toyota Chinook floor and the other the cab-over bunk in a Toyota Minicruiser. Technique is the same regardless of make.

I coat all floor wood with epoxy resin when possible. Much more durable and weather resistant than polyurethane. In high stress structural areas I use fiberglass and epoxy resin to fasten or sometimes Liquid Nails glue. Gorilla glue works well also.

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this is really nice work and i like the gloss on the plywood, i too used fiberglass resin on the restroom floor area seemed like there was some there already , i tried to upload photos again with the stupid error message so im going to just take all the advice i can from you guys and each step i do ask for ideas or send pictures via private messages through emails...thank you for taking the time to write me a message to help me with this build . regardless i will still take photos at some point upload the build...thank you all.

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Yeah somebody who knows the inner workings of the site needs to check out your profile. I notice in your first post of this page, it shows that you edited your post.

One thing I've noticed about this forum is that you can edit your post anytime you want, and it won't show that you edited it. If you look around, you'll see that no one else has posts that say "Edited by whatevermembername, 13 February 2015 - 05:11 PM."

Something is messed up with your account, and I'm sure it's why you can't upload photos.

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