(Guaranteed you will be covered in rubber particles and old decal flakes!) I also had to take several breaks to cool off the drill and my arms. Therefore it was imparative for safety glasses, leather work gloves and most definitely a face mask.
Reaching out to a couple auto body experts, the secret to removing decals, crud, etc from your car/trailer without damaging the paint is using a 3M eraser attached to a drill (FYI with cord, because you will kill your battery on a cordless, nor get the sustained 2700 rpms you need) However just be aware the price was $47, because I needed enough eraser for such a large surface area.įYI, my drill did get hot and the bit did not want to latch in at times. Also our paint is not in too bad of shape, probably just needs touch up paint and a good waxing. However their intention was to repaint the entire aluminum body, whereas I’m partial to the original green color. I did some internet research and Roamin Fam’s blog had a cheap solution of just removing the decals with MEK solvent and a few hours of scraping.
The heat gun method did not work, and rather burned the paint in my last blog post.
#APACHE POP UP CAMPER CRACKED#
Lastly I attempted to remove the stubborn 1978 cracked decals. The results were fabulous and used this combo both on the trailer frame, and stabilizing jacks after another round of wire brushing rust… Some quick before and after pics…Īs for follow-up from our last blog post, I did test the combination of Rustoleums Rust Reformer spray (matte black), followed by two coats of Rustoleum “painters touch” semi gloss black enamel spray. Next up was replacing out all the rusted screws of the Apache exterior with stainless steel ones. This allowed the stripping to slide perfectly into the groove of the roof line. Once the old rotten stripping was removed we had to gently, and meticulously scrap away the glue from the ABS roof with a razor blade and steel wool.Īfter the surface was clean of gunk we replaced out the vinyl (even though our weather stripping was purchased from an Apache parts store) I still had to cut/shave down the “T” end of the stripping by hand with scissors. Pretty gross, that’s another 37 years of dust and grime. Here’s a before pic of the cracked and missing weather stripping after removing the aluminum trim… Luckily the seller of our trailer had already purchased these parts and threw them in for free. However issues arise, it’s not always easily available and each strip can cost up to $30 each. Reading the Apache websites and group posts, the weatherstripping is always the first and most necessary to be replaced as it helps prevent leaking.
#APACHE POP UP CAMPER UPDATE#
The first exterior update was to replace the infamous bunkend weather stripping. We also tried to squeeze as many trailer repairs as possible into two very busy weekends. That doesn’t mean we didn’t enjoy our home town, baseball games, windsurfing at local lakes and visiting our city’s newest breweries…
( Kids, when you’re parents say “don’t be in a rush to grow up” listen to them) Nope we weren’t off on another adventure…Unfortunately we were home bound due to work and grown-up responsibilities.
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