At last the weather was warming up enough to apply sealant. Our product of choice is Sikaflex 512-Caravan, and although this will cure at 5°, its optimum temperature is 15° and above. The main reason we took all the fittings off the caravan in the first place was to ensure, to the best of our ability, there were no leaks, so we wanted the sealant to perform at its best; hence the wait for warmer days. In removing the side trims, we discovered some of the original sealant between body panels had dried out and, in the case of the body panel beside the door, a large proportion of it had no functioning sealant at all. This was the first panel to be dealt with. Beads of Sikaflex were run down the panel where it fixes to the door frame, and along the bottom where it meets the fibreglass. We clamped the vertical section in place. More Sikaflex was applied to the reverse of the trim that hides the horizontal join, and the trim was screwed on. We expected sealant to be forced out as the pressure increased, but the bead under the panel was partially cured so it was difficult to wipe off tidily. Perseverance won out, and our first piece of polished trim was fixed in place.
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| Applying sealant at panel join |
At the top of this panel, there were further areas requiring re-sealing. Having learned our lesson regarding partially cured sealant, we resealed this joint and held it together for a few days with a couple of screws, before fitting the aluminium trim. This method was repeated on the off-side where required.
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| Applying Sikaflex to back of trim |
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| Screwing trim on |
You may recall we had drilled out the screws holding the trims, and with many of these, part of the screw was still embedded in the wood frame. Relocated holes were required with new countersunk holes in the trim and pilot holes in the body. Where the screw was fully removed, I planned to use larger screws (to ensure a tight grip in the original hole) but with a larger screw comes a larger head and the Herzim strip would not fit over them. Therefore, all original holes were sealed and new ones drilled to mount the trims using original size screws.
While the Sikaflex was out, we took the opportunity to fit the Whale water inlet socket. The socket is designed to fit a flat surface, but where we want it is curved. I cut some plastic to match the curvature, and inserted it between the socket and body, then sealed it with Sikaflex.
More trims were fitted throughout April and May, and Herzim strip inserted. It is designed to slide in from one end, but our trims were imperfect so the strip would not slide through. It was easier to fit the top of the strip in the groove of the trim and then tuck the bottom edge in with a butter knife (I have read that some people used their thumb nails to do this, and then complained about the pain!). This was when we found our trims have different sized grooves, as the 11mm Herzim was too small for the top trims. Do you remember what I said on page 7 about measuring before ordering? I wish I had! An order for 13mm strip was duly placed. Each Herzim strip took between forty and sixty minutes to install, and there are ten of them.
