BrianO

So I'm finally getting the bathroom back together, I have the floor reinforced, the shower base rebuilt and the two halves of the bathroom fiber glassed together. I have the toilet flange in and I am ready to install the toilet. My question is? When I removed the toilet it had a small (foam only) gasket between it and the flange. I'm used to seen a wax ring sealing the toilet to the flange. Is it different for an RV? I'm inclined to put a wax ring in to get a good seal. Does anyone have a reason why I shouldn't? Have others used a wax ring? Thanks, Brian

So I'm finally getting the bathroom back together, I have the floor reinforced, the shower base rebuilt and the two halves of the bathroom fiber glassed together. I have the toilet flange in and I am ready to install the toilet. My question is? When I removed the toilet it had a small (foam only) gasket between it and the flange. I'm used to seen a wax ring sealing the toilet to the flange. Is it different for an RV? I'm inclined to put a wax ring in to get a good seal. Does anyone have a reason why I shouldn't? Have others used a wax ring? Thanks, Brian

Thanks everyone, sounds like I'll try adding some wood strip framing first then probably scew or staple the paneling to that.

My 1980 Sunrader came completely stripped down to the fiberglass walls on the interior. My plan is to panel the interior but there is nothing to attach the paneling to. Gluing it to the fiberglass wall doesn't make any sense since they are curved and irregular and would not allow room for any insulation. It looks like original Sunraders have paneling, what is it attached to? My only idea right now is to fiberglass 1"x2" wood strips onto the wall and then attach to that. This would leave enough space for insulation as well but seems like a hassle. Does anyone have experience with this? pictures? thanks, Brian

My original thought was to just add a curtain but I decided I wanted something a little more robust, after someone broke into my cab. I Thought about adding a window but it was too much work and I figured I'd just leave the door open while driving. Though I have to admit the sound is deafening with everything removed from the coach. Installing a sliding door is kind of a mess. I'm basically shifting the shower closet over about 1.0 inches (which I've had to cut in half to fix the shower pan) this is causing alignment issues with the toilent flange and the bathroom vent. Everything is fixable but it is a lot of work.

That's great! How well does the spray urethane foam support it? Have you put your weight on it to see if it flexes? My shower pan had a similar repair but the rest of the structure was so messed up that I couldn't tell if the spay foam provided enough support.

I decided I needed a sliding door between the coach and the cab on my Sunrader. Something that is open while driving but that I can close when I'm parked. has anyone seen anything like this? In the limited looking around I've done I've not seen any thing more than a curtain. I'm brainstorming ideas on how to secure everthing. In order for the door to not block the passage between the coach and the cab in the retracted position it cannot be very wide, which means in the closed position there is a large gap. This will not be a problem because the bathroom will be blocking the opening. I've mocked the slider up a bit but there are many details I still need to figure out. It would be nice to see some other examples. Thanks, Brian

The first time I took my Sunrader out in public (about a month ago) I went to a mall in Salem Oregon. I had it parked in the parking lot for about 2 hrs and in that time someone took a screwdriver to the passenger side door lock and forced it open. destroying the keyhole and lock mechanism. Has this happened to anyone else before? How was your motor home entered? I'm assuming it must be easier to get in through the drivers or passengers door than through the motor home door. I'm considering possibly building a securable sliding door that would isolate the cab from the rest of the motor home. It seems like a good idea to have something like this to keep from heating the cab at night when camping as well as the added security. Has anyone seen or heard of anyone doing this kind of a modification? It would have to involve securing (at least temporarily) the opening to the bunk over the cab as well. Perhaps if a potential thief looks into the cab and see's that there is not easy access to the rest of the vehicle they might not bother.....maybe. If the person that broke in would have bothered to look inside they would have seen the motor home was completely gutted. As it was they destroyed the door and had nothing to take. Oh well, be careful if you park in the Lancaster Mall. Brian

I finally got the shower pan reinforced. I fiberglassed in a 3/4" board and leveled it out with epoxy and microspheres. It's heavier than the original but much stronger. If I were to do it over again I would just turn the shower pan upside down and fill all the external pockets of the black 'honeycomb' base with epoxy thickened enough with microspheres so that it would not flow through the cracked parts of the plastic. this would probably stiffen the pan enough. But the way it is now I can jump on it and it wont budge. Next will be to reinstall the pan and fiberglass the top half of the bathroom closet back on. On a side note, the toilet flange that I had such a problem removing and eventually cut apart was not glued together as I said earlier but was threaded...all I really needed to do was unscrew it once the toilet was off of it...oh well

I could not see a good way to remove the bathroom so I cut the shower pan off the bottom of the closet so I could get it in the shop to work on it. The shower pan itself is very thin and it's attached to a honeycomb-like base that is made of light and thin material. Over time it appears that the base has separated from the shower pan and is cracked in several place. This was making the floor feel flimsy when I stood on it even though it was firmly setting on a nice solid floor. Also the area were the closet flange screws down is cracked. Looks like someone did a temporary repair by drilling holes into the base and spraying in a polyurethane foam but it's not that stiff. The shower pan and base are glued and fiberglassed together so I can't really see an easy way to reinforce it. I've decided I'm going to remove a section of the base and then glass in a piece of plywood and some additional framing to support the pan. I'll also build up the area around the closet flange to strengthen it. The pain is going to be reattaching the top of the closet to the shower pan. I just cut it near the seam with a cut-off wheel so it's not perfect. Originally the top and bottom pieces where joined with a piece of H-channel then fiberglassed from the outside. I need to find some small plastic 'H-Channel' or 'T-Channel' or maybe just a glue on plastic strip to hide my sloppy cutting. Anyone know of a source for plastic trim?

I was wondering the same thing. I have a 1980 18' Sunrader and went out a couple of days ago and filled up 1 gallon milk jugs with water and started pouring them down the tiolet. At 8 gallons the water level was about 1/2" from the top of the tank. At 9 gallons it started coming up the 3" pipe connecting the toilet to the black water tank. At 10 gallons the water was not coming up the 3" pipe towards the toilet anyore but was spilling onto the ground under the Sunrader. I'm hoping this is due to some sort of overflow mechanism Just from this experiment I'd say yes, it's an 8 gallon black water tank.

Thanks Alvin and 85Mirage, It was infact glued together very well so I ended up just cutting it off and I'm going to order a replacement as suggested. I may have to add a sleeve in addition to the new closet flange in order to bring the replacement to the original height. One other to thing to be aware of if anyone tries this on a Sunrader is that I don't believe you can remove the closet form the rv unless you separate the shower pan from the bottom of the closet. It looks like it was originally 2 pieces that are glassed together on the outside. Even separated it may be a challenge to get out the door with out damaging it.

Hi all, I'm new to this forum and have recently purchased a 1980 Sunrader 18ft. This seems like a great place to ask questions. I'm trying to remove the entire bathroom closet from the Sunrader so that I can reinforce the shower pan. I'm to the point where I have the entire fiberglass closet free except that the black toilet flange at the bottom is still holding it to the floor. Does anyone out there have experience on how it's attached? Other than the 6 very large screws going through the flange into the shower pan...I've removed those and now I can rotate the entire closet but I cannot lift it up because the flange is still holding it down. I was hoping the black flange would just slide up and out but now I'm guessing it might be glue to the black water tank. Before I do anything extreme I just wanted to see if anyone has had experience removing this. I see two options at this point. 1) Just pry harder and risk cracking the shower pan and hope the flange pops off. 2) Cut the flange off, remove the bathroom closet , and hope I can find a replacement that I can reattach to the black water tank. Any ideas? Thanks, Brian