The desire to go camping but….

Hello Im brand new to the forum and would love to hear any advice you might be able to give on repairing our rooftop window on our Autosleeper Nuevo 2002 van.  Not the small one above the sink or in the bathroom, but the massive big window right above the lounge area. 

Have bought the sealant already (as advised by the kind man at autosleepers) but now what!?

Does anyone have any tips or video links, photos guidance…or anything on repairing and trying to figure where the leak is coming from.

We can see it is coming through the little air vent holes around the rim of the window inside the van and it has stained the ceiling fabric. It all very sad… As I really want to go camping  but its dripping right over my head 

Thank you 
Ruth

Not the same make or size of rooflight, but this video may help the general principles...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToeqlFeSd1o

I had a leak the day before going to France last year. Now I have taken the roof light, not the big Heki, off and refitted it I realise that it is a simple job.

Just a small tip. I'm pretty sure that I didn't have to panic. I suspect that all I had to do was to tighten the screws as they had worked loose over time.

Good luck
Peter

I had exactly the same problem with my 2006 Nuevo, i took it back to the dealer and they resealed it. Only took them a couple of days and its been as "good as gold" since, even in those bad storms we`ve just had  

PS. The staining will come out with some upholstery stain remover, well mine did  

Thanks very much for the info. video and such …we're hoping the rain keeps off tomorrow so we can give it a go.  Our nearest Auto-sleeper place or indeed and motorhome repair peoples, are 2 hours away so hope we don't have to make that trip. We'll see what happens and let you know.  upholstery stain remover now on the shopping list!

Have a great weekend everyone
Ruth

I looked at that video & to be honest, I wasn't too impressed with the fitters ability, it that's the quality of work done at these places, then I'll carry on 'doing it myself'.

If you freeze-frame at 3.59, you'll see a big gap at the corner where two strips of mastic don't 
( but should ) meet, NO cleaning off of the underside prior to re-fitting, the guy placed the filthy screen/frame on the upholstery, then seemed to roughly rub his hands across the VERY delicate mesh, then shoved the still mucky assembly back together.
I'm also not too impressed with the mastic-strip only, for a nice 'fingered-in' fillet of PU sealant around the external joint would finish the job, once done (correctly ) it should be permanent.
I'm fully aware that service is charged by the hour, but, only a few minutes would be added &  sorry, i'm 'old-school', & used to take pride in the work I did & had that look of satisfaction as my jobs were driven away.

Hi, 

Well my fabulous husband has managed to seal the van today...in between the snow and rain!  The hardest part was trying not to get the sealant all over us and the van!! It had only gone in the area around the hinges to the window..but he's re done the lot.

Now we sit and wait for the next big batch of rain (its coming i believe)  and see if we fixed it. 

Thanks again.

Ruth

I've just looked at the video showing the replacement of the roof light since I'm going to be doing one myself. Like 'modelman' I will definitely be doing it myself if that's the care taken within the 'industry'.  Other dealers must surely be horrified that this person saw fit to post this.

modelman wrote:I looked at that video & to be honest, I wasn't too impressed with the fitters ability, it that's the quality of work done at these places, then I'll carry on 'doing it myself'.

If you freeze-frame at 3.59, you'll see a big gap at the corner where two strips of mastic don't 
( but should ) meet, NO cleaning off of the underside prior to re-fitting, the guy placed the filthy screen/frame on the upholstery, then seemed to roughly rub his hands across the VERY delicate mesh, then shoved the still mucky assembly back together.
I'm also not too impressed with the mastic-strip only, for a nice 'fingered-in' fillet of PU sealant around the external joint would finish the job, once done (correctly ) it should be permanent.
I'm fully aware that service is charged by the hour, but, only a few minutes would be added &  sorry, i'm 'old-school', & used to take pride in the work I did & had that look of satisfaction as my jobs were driven away.

I agree, a very poor quality job, even the water dripping onto the carpet off the roof light when he pulled through the opening.
I would have expected a proper clean of the roof light and stained ceiling board, maybe left the cover off for a while to let the wood dry out. Sealant strip to overlap in all the corners, in fact I would have probably put two strips down and some sikaflex just to be double sure.

Mind you, there are no exposed screws on my roof lights, no idea how to get them off should I ever need to...
Allan