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1985 Toyota Dolphin Motorhome -3/4 ROOF RE-BUILD


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After a complete successful rebuild of the entire passenger side of my baby summer/fall 2014 the northeast had a SERIOUS amount of snow (like over 10 feet in 4 weeks) well, I live in San Francisco and the motorhome is stored at my mother's in Connecticut - do the math.

     Came back east to go up to New Hampshire and rebuild the interior and found the lyrics to The Grateful Dead's 'Brown Eyed Women' ringing in my head as I viewed my poor Dolphin : "Snowed so hard that the roof caved in."   

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/s6zbz557naukc3f/AABreFk9-ckj_NoiGdNuZOMya?dl=0

 

I am fully not kidding one bit when i tell you that I literally called the local dump and asked if and how they would take my R.V. off my hands...THEN just on a whim I went on Craigslist for the Hartford Connecticut area, typed in R.V. repair or something, and found this AMAZING DUDE that comes to you with all tools needed for around $30 an hour in his awesome little redone sweet 1978 motorhome and does R.V. REPAIR.  Together we jammed it out in like 3 or 4 days.

     Very much easier to write about it and read about it, but  basically we peeled back the aluminum top like a sardine can. Assess the wood on the top of each side's wall. I had just completely rebuilt the passenger side wall and thank God the driver side wall was still in decent shape.

    Making sure to create and restore the convex shape of the roof,we used one of the original pre-shaped cross-sections as a template and replicated it using about 8 to a dozen 7 Foot pine wood 1 x 2 boards. We matched or improved upon the construction around the middle vent and the forward vent. We put quarter inch plywood on top of the cross sections- and then did my best with the ripped aluminum -banging it out tucking back in the creases etc. Stapled it down and replaced the moldings with a set of new screws.

     Make sure to have a pad of paper masking tape anything you can do to write down the routing of the wiring and label the wiring as you will have to drill holes in these cross-sections 2 route the wires. 

   EPMD self leveling sealant by dicor over the Staples and the cracks and the holes and the seams.

Edited by freebear13
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So sorry this happened.  I am in the snow belt of Michigan and have to leave mine parked outside with a tarp on it.  Some winters I have shoveled off shin deep snow twice because I was worried about the weight.

However!!  Glad you found your guy and made repairs.  I had wondered several times how to rebuild a sagging Dolphin roof.  Now at least I know that it can be done.

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Thanks for the pictures and the story.  3 or 4 days is impressive for that amount of work, would take me 3 or 4 months. Glad it worked out so well for you.    Jim

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