Foretravel Owners' Forum For owners and Fans of Foretravel Motorcoaches September 10, 2025 ...

Shower Ceiling Removal

November 16, 2021, 05:16:02 pm

I have a 1999 U320 36' Motorhome. I noticed the plastic shower ceiling has a crack in it emanating from the corner of the skylight. I want to remove this piece and replace it. I have not yet attempted  to remove it, I thought I'd ask first. The shower ceiling piece is outlined by a narrow, rounded brass colored trim. I would say it is original to the coach.
Does anyone have experience with removing this ? I'm not sure how it is fastened to the ceiling. There are no visible fasteners and I don't want to damage it.

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Re: Shower Ceiling Removal

Reply #1 – November 17, 2021, 01:02:56 am

T.
 I'm equally curious what response you get from your inquiry.  We have the same crack in I'm guessing a piece of Cory Ann above the shower.  Ours also starts at the skylight and ends at the sidewall.  98% of the time you'd be hard pressed to maybe get a dime in it      And then the other 2% it closes completely and if I didn't know it was there, you couldn't find it.

  Now idea how its secured though.  Glue I imagine??

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Reply #2 – November 17, 2021, 07:55:14 am

Search Shower Skylight Rebuild

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Reply #3 – November 17, 2021, 10:02:52 am

Corian is subject to heat/ cold and will expand contract with each.  Put some ice to the crack and it will seal up, maybe permanently.

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Reply #4 – December 06, 2021, 11:52:32 pm

Update on shower ceiling panel removal. The panel I am referring to is the flat "Formica" panel that surrounds the shower skylight. It is glued in place and can be removed with a good putty knife. The reason I needed to remove it, I started seeing six evenly spaced dark spots about the size of a dime, all in perfect alignment. Once the panel was removed I saw the tip of 6 screws that came in contact with the backside of the Formica panel. To give me more room I removed the Glass shower panels, shower door and frame. I also ended up removing one of the Corian wall panels because it was pinching the Formica ceiling panel between it and the plywood ceiling above the Formica panel.
You could tell that water was finding its way down the "rusty" screw to the Formica witch produced the dark spots that I had seen.
Next step was to go up top and find out how the water was getting in. FYI, I purchased my used 1999 U320 back in June 2021 in Arizona. The coach had spent most of it's life in dry Arizona. It took until October 2021 and a few Illinois thunderstorms before I started noticing the spots in the shower ceiling panel. Anyway, once up top and inspecting the skylight assembly I could see the caulking was dried out and cracking. I started the removal of the skylight. All the screws holding the skylight base down we're covered with caulking. I cleaned off the caulking so I could remove the screws and immediately noticed 6 screws were Philips Drive pan head screws the rest, hex head screws. All the screws were 1" in length except for the six pan head screws which were 3" in length -  the screws contacting the inside shower ceiling panel ??
The skylight base was very stubborn to remove, but again a putty knife does the trick. The next concerning Encounter I noticed was the use of three different types of sealant - clear silicone, white latex caulking and plumbers putty (whom ever did the last repair really did not know what the were doing) I was able to remove all the sealant and get down to the fiberglass roof skin. I noticed spider webbed cracks in the fiberglass emanating from the many of the screw holes. There is also a tear in the fiberglass about 4" in length starting from the forward, inboard corner of the skylight opening in the roof.
Unfortunately, it's now winter time (December) in Naperville, Illinois and I need to find someone that knows the best and correct way to fix my situation with the fiberglass roof skin. The 3/8"plywood underlayment is good and solid just need to repair the .060" thick fiberglass skin. I have my own idea but would need to get the coach indoors to repair. Anybody in the Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana area know a good body shop that specializes in RV and or boat fiberglass repair that can fit a 36' motor home in their shop ?

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Reply #5 – December 07, 2021, 12:05:24 pm

Sorry I cannot help you with the fiberglass repair but I want to thank you for the follow-up post.  It is good to understand how the various parts of our coaches are put together.  The one step that you skipped over was how you removed the one wall panel.  was it also glued directly to the sidewall and did you simply use your trusty putty knife? 

Thanks

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Reply #6 – December 07, 2021, 12:27:06 pm

I can't help with a shop but based on how far you have made it so far i think you can handle a little fiberglass patch! Just sand down the area you want patched to rough it up a bit. Get yourself some fiberglass mat material and resin/hardner from any auto parts shop or big box store. Mix up some resin, brush it on your patch and away you go! You can wait till next week and we will see some above freezing temps again. Have everything ready to go.

If for some reason the patch is rough you can always sand it down but that will seal it up nice. Obviously it will not be painted but you can come back to that next year if you like.

If you google search installing the skylight you will find a bunch of posts of good ways to do it. Everyone seems to have slightly different opinions on the proper way. All of them will work for another 20 years if done well.

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Reply #7 – December 07, 2021, 01:07:30 pm

If you use epoxy like coldcure and fiberglass cloth you can work in colder temperatures.
Another advantage of using epoxy is it is waterproof. Make sure you use cloth no mat
with epoxy.

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Reply #8 – December 09, 2021, 09:17:05 pm

Thank you for your reply's. To Jan and Richard, the vertical  Corian shower wall panels are very easy to remove.
1)  First remove the caulking on the vertical sides, top and along base.
2) In the corner of the shower where the two Corian panels come together, there is a vertical trim piece, also made of Corian that needs to be removed. It is held in place by caulking so use a good, thin flexible putty knife and push it in all the way under the trim piece until the putty knife bottoms out. Do this on both sides all the way from top to bottom. The trim piece is fragile so be careful. Once you sever the bond between the trim piece and panel you will see the trim piece is loose and ready to pull off. If not loose keep at it with the putty knife.
3) Remove the shower frame work and glass panels. There are pan head screws (Phillips Drive) on the inside of the shower frame. It's pretty straight forward. Remove door first then sides. There are three long screws securing the vertical shower frame to the Corian panel (3 screws each side). These long screws are the only screws holding the Corian panels into the
It does appear that the Corian shower wall panels do have glue applied to the backside, but mine did not seem to be bonded to the wall ?
I put an old bed sheet across the bed and laid out all the shower pieces as they came off.

As for the roof fiberglass repair, since the fiberglass skin on the roof is only 1/16" thick, trying to "V" groove the many tiny cracks emanating from the multiple skylight base screw mounting holes would be an arduous task. I was thinking, since most of the damaged fiberglass is within four to six inches out, around the perimeter of the skylight opening in the roof, that I could carefully cut out a larger area, say 8" out around the perimeter of the skylight opening. I could then glue in a new piece, cut out the skylight opening and fiberglass in the "new" edge created between the new piece and my cut line. The flange of the skylight base would then be mounted and sealed to the new fiberglass piece ? Any RV fiberglass roof experts out there that can comment on this ?

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Reply #9 – December 10, 2021, 09:12:28 am

Yes, many of us have patched other roof penetrations (mainly where old satellite dishes were mounted or absorption refrigerator roof vents were blocked off as part of a residential refrigerator upgrade).

FG overlay with a good polysulfide bond and just a few screws on the outer perimeter should do the trick.

For smaller areas, I have used aluminum painted white.  On that large an area, there might be a coefficient of expansion difference such that you would want to stick with FG.

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