Newmar Repair For Lake Forest Owners

Clear depth mismatch on Dutch Star and Mountain Aire repairs

Newmar clear is applied heavy and often flow sanded, so the surface has an optical depth that a standard two coat clear does not reproduce. A repaired section can match perfectly on colour and still read as wrong because the reflection is shallower. The way through is to shoot the repair to the same film build, then flow sand and polish the adjacent original panels back to a common finish. That is more labour than a normal blend and it is the difference between a repair that disappears and one that an owner sees every time they walk past.

Outrigger deflection after a low speed side strike

The house on a Newmar diesel hangs on outriggers that cantilever out from the chassis rails. A bollard or a gate post catching the side of the coach at walking speed transmits that load straight into an outrigger, which bends before the sidewall visibly fails. The coach then sits a fraction low on that side, the slide seals wear unevenly, and the sidewall develops a long soft ripple. Straightening the skin without addressing the outrigger produces a coach that looks right for about six months.

Flush bay door fit on King Aire and Essex

Concealed hinge flush doors are set to very tight and very even gaps at the plant, and the gap is what makes the coach look expensive. Any frame movement, any door skin repair, any change in paint film thickness on the door edge shows immediately. Setting these doors is an iterative process of hanging, measuring, adjusting the hinge shims and rehanging, and it has to happen after paint rather than before, because the paint itself changes the gap by a measurable amount.

Steel cage corrosion at the wet bay on older coaches

Newmar's use of steel tube in the structure is a strength, and it becomes a liability where a wet bay has had a slow plumbing weep for years. The water sits at the bottom of a tube section and the corrosion works from the inside out, so the exterior looks fine right up until a section collapses under jack load. On any older Newmar we take in with wet bay history, the lower structure gets probed and, where needed, sections are cut out and replaced with new tube rather than treated and painted over.

Windshield gasket to cap interface on Ventana and Bay Star

The front cap is fiberglass, the windshield is glass, and the gasket between them has to absorb the difference in how those two materials move. When a coach has been in a front end incident, the cap gets repaired to shape but the gasket channel is often left a millimetre or two off. The glass then goes back in with uneven preload and starts to weep in the upper corners the first time it rains hard. We check the channel with the glass out and correct the cap contour rather than relying on extra sealant to make up the difference.