Is it possible to mold the front and rear end caps into the body of a coach. Is that ever done when a "full body paint" is done.. I've never noticed that in any pics of the work done. A search of it didn't bring up much either.
I recently resealed one side of the coach belt line and part of the end cap trim including new SS screws and caulk, all that. Now I see the new caulk already being a pain to clean. I'd love to just bondo that seam and get rid of THAT. seam anyway.
Xtreme can do that and FT body shop I am sure. If there is movement between panels it might not be a thing to do?
JohnH
If you ask Rance at Xtreme he will tell you that the seam adds a stress relief point, sort of like they do in concrete. If the side wall is stressed and can move just a bit relative to the end caps then other cracks are less likely. If it is all glassed together then the stress has to go somewhere, the weakest place and will cause a crack (stress relief) there.
If they are going to glass it in they will grind back a few inches or more on each side of the joint and add nonwoven glass mat, resin, maybe a layer of woven material, some more glass mat and more resin. Then that all gets ground and sanded close to flat and then sprayed with get goat. Then all of that gets sanded and polished.
Bob, et al.....i am pretty sure the fix now on some newer coaches is to return them to the old way, that is to say they put on the seam cover strip and do not try to fill in so as to eliminate the appearance as was bought. Even more, why do I think that I saw newish coach last Oct that is now built with the seam cover?
Bob, worth a check on that, may help your analysis....but do wharever Xtreme says.
I see.. Thanks for the replies. I thought maybe it was a stress point or relief thing. Was just a little jealous of some newer coaches that are " smoother" in appearance --- but --- I get it. I'll move on to more important coach things. ( it was pretty far down on the priority list anyway). Great to get a variety of the same answer. Thanks to all.
FOT moved away from the seam cover strip because of leakage. On my 2007 Nimbus and models in the 2008 year moved away from seam strips to eliminate the water leakage that was occurring. FOT removed all my seam strips, fiberglassed the seam together, and glued the seam strip over the filled in part for looks. The strip does nothing now but is for show. Numerous problems were occurring with the strips on the newer models.
Bob