WillyDerness

Thanks Linda!

Figured I've done enough snooping on the site and have benefited from many helpful posts on here. Last week I backed into a fence with my spare tire taking the brunt of the damage. This was a big bummer because I'm living out of it for the winter (thanks to the diesel heater) and having a hole in the back of my house is less than ideal. The collision drove the spare tire through fiberglass and a rotten wall into my bathroom cabinet. As I started to tear into the bathroom I found lots of stinky rotten wood due the lower back wall separating from the bottom so road grime had been spraying between all the layers of panelling and fiberglass. I decided that the bathroom sink wasn't necessary so I cut and capped the plumbing before reframing with 1x2s and driving them into the surrounding, semi-sturdy wood. I then cut two panels of 1" polyiso and fit it in snug with spray foam. I rebuilt the spare tire carrier with 3/4" birch and laid a 1/8" birch panel over the top of the whole thing. I plan to later build a smaller cubby and shelf here but for now I like the extra room. On the outside I did my first fiberglass patch job using the entirety of Bondo's 420 fiberglass repair kit and it worked great! Took awhile to cure at 40 degrees in Montana but its sturdy now. To address the wall separating across the bottom I screwed up a 4ft long strip of 3/4" birch into the base board on the wall and then fixed angle strapping to the birch and then pulled the wall in as tight as i could and screwed the strapping up into the floor.