Resealing shower/toilet room - AS Harmony

Hi all

Of all the things I need to do on the van (199 Harmony), the biggest is going to be the shower room - in general its not bad, but the window surround plastic has a crack in it and it needs resealing all around.

Down the corners the sealant has shrunk and some of the lining paper is wrinkled and around the toilet and bottom of the shower tray and around the window has large gaps - we plan do do some wild camping so need to make the room water tight to use the shower on odd occasions.

I am planning to take a week of work around end of October and repair the window surround as shown in this post [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

I am not a DIY expert but the pictures on there give me great confidence, although I will probably be asking loads of question when work starts.  This will also let me check there are no problems with the pipes and I might try and replace/repair the mixer tap for the shower - it looks ok and works but the  bottom tap (cold?) handle seems loose compared to the hot when you turn it on.

Once that is done I will remove all the sealant around the room - in quite a few areas the lining wall paper has wrinkled near the sealant - it looks a bit like the sealant has expanded and pushed the paper...(Can anyone recommend a good way to remove the sealant without damaging the wallpaper). 

When I reseal it, to cover the wallpaper where it is wrinkled I will like quick a thick bead of sealant, so was thinking of using something like this [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] or something like [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] if it will bend into a L shape to go down the wall.  That would seal it without having the unsightly thick sealant beads. If anyone has done anything like this either in the motorhome or house bathroom I would welcome suggestions of what to use. 

A previous owner has also attached some shelves and a smoke alarm to the outside wall using 2 inch nuts and bolts.  They have drilled right through the wall and in the bathroom has stuck some hooks on the end of the bolts and then put the nuts on...Ive removed these but it has left about half a dozen holes around 6mm diameter that where big enough to see through from the other side!!!!  I have filled them with wood filler and made them good from the outside but they need something doing on the inside.  I was jut going to put some white caps (not sure what there called) but was thinking I could put some mirror tiles over them instead.   I seem to remember seeing some very thin, almost flexible mirrors that I could fix to the wall but can't remember what they where or called - anyone any ideas?

The last thing (for today!) is that need to do is replace the push button on the mirror in the bathroom cabinet - AS has sent me the part but to fit it I need to remove the old one - fastened in with sealant - to do it I need to remove the mirrors from cabinet but I can't work out how to get them out - there isn't enough room to slide them up to get them over the runners - it looks like I need to remove the bottom or top runner.

Any advice, comments, suggestions, offers for you to come and do it all for me most welcome..

Richard

Hi,

Your best bet would go to either a caravan or motorhome dealer that has a workshop. or accessories shop, and buy the correct sealant that the motorhome builders use, the sealant from  Wickes is not suitable that is for houses, the one for motorhomes is different and motorhomes flex when being driven and subjected to more extreme temperatures, I got some from Grantham caravans, had a word with the repairers there, very helpful they were too. I don`t need it at the moment, got some in stock in case I do. Hope this helps

daisy mae wrote:Hi,

Wickes is not suitable that is for houses, the one for motorhomes is different and motorhomes flex when being driven and subjected to more extreme temperatures

That figures - it looks like a previous owner has resealed it around the windows and up one corner and thats where the cracks are worse - they probably used domestic stuff instead of proper caravan stuff   

I had to swap my push catch, the sealant/glue was easy to pick off by hand, put new catch in place and used a glue gun from behind, half closed the mirrors in opposite directions so the front mirror was effectively holding the catch into place while the glue held

Thanks 

On a slightly different note, I am replacing the gold cupboard handles at the weekend - I have taken the rosettes off already and some of them look like they where just a push fitted but others look like they have had glue or something applied on the "threads" to hold them in - when you changed yours did you use hot glue to keep them in or sealant...
/
Is there a "best" sealant to buy that will do everything or does it depend on what needs done?

Off the top of my head, jobs that I need to do that will need sealant are:

Bathroom windows and up corners of walls
Sticking mirror catch on
Sticking gold rosettes on
Sealing high top windows thats leaking (black seal joint between high top windows frame and van roof)
Removing an external aerial and sealing old cable hole and maybe sticking a plastic cap over it
Sticking an external aerial socket - not sure where yet - probably high top....

Is it one size fits all?

Cheers
Richard

Only changed the centre push buttons of the cupboard catches and they all crewed onto the push stalk, as far as I know the outer bezel can be pushed out from behind of you take the back of the lock off

As for sealants I haven't used any as yet other than for the external aerial pint which came with its own gasket seal

Creeping crack seal may work for the window surround, any caravan accessories place would have that

For sealing round windows the black stuff, you need Sikaflex 221 in black, I was recommended this, and works a treat, be aware that it is very messy, rubber gloves needed, also it is thick and hard to get out of the container, you will need one of those guns, do not know what the correct term is, that you put a tube in and then screw it from the bottom, hope you can understand that, I found that if I fill a tall container with boiling water and left it in that for a while is was easy to get a flow on it when squeezing it out of the tube, otherwise I found it was blobbing and harder to make a neat smooth job., it is also excellent for re-gluing those black panels that many smaller MH have on the side usually over the windows.
I have done that job and no way will it come off.