Foretravel Owners' Forum For owners and Fans of Foretravel Motorcoaches September 13, 2025 ...

Brett have seen 3 or 4 GV 's late 80's models with same delam issues as ours in Arizona the past 5 years.  These are West Coast coaches not exposed to that much weather.  From what I gather the glue used was just old yellow contact cement the kind used to cement  Formica to plywood for counter tops.

What areas were delaminated (again talking about the fiberglass "skin" pulling loose from the metal framework)?

Easy to tell early in the morning with dew on the coach, as you should see each metal beam. Also, there will be a bulge and you should be able to push on it and move the sidewall back into its proper plane.

Just to clarify, if you see the steel beams with dew it means you don't have delam?

I don't think FT is or has used Filon for sidewalls.
Roger

the outer skin of any Foretravel is produced at the factory

Fiberglass skins for sidewalls, done previously by hand on the premises, are now outsourced.

Brett have seen 3 or 4 GV 's late 80's models with same delam issues as ours in Arizona the past 5 years.  These are West Coast coaches not exposed to that much weather.  From what I gather the glue used was just old yellow contact cement the kind used to cement  Formica to plywood for counter tops.

Treat it very well and it returns the favor with every adventure.

The work to adventure ratio is incredibly one-sided.

There appears to be a difference in the lay up schedule between Dons 99 and my 97.  The layup when we removed the windows did not have the outer fiberglass seen in your core.

Are you referring to the 1/2" thick yellow layer in Don's photo?  That is not fiberglass, but a different kind of foam.  I was told FT did something different in the wall lay up starting in 1998.  If I recall it was to improve the thermal properties but I'm really not sure.  Anyone else up on this?

Here is a better picture of the sidewall dryer hole plug. The gelcoat is barely visible on the right, because it is very thin in cross section. The dark reddish brown layer next to it is the glass fiber infused substrate and is really one with the gelcoat. Delamination/debonding occurs between the gelcoat/laid-up fiberglass layer and the insulation or steel framing. The apprx. 9/16" layer of brown rigid foam insulation is much denser and harder than the blue styrofoam insulation next to it. I imagine that this harder insulation helps create a more rigid wall structure than the blue styrofoam by itself, but that is just speculation on my part. The blue styrofoam layer is 1" thick. The filon layer next to it is about a sixteenth of inch and the left most luan plywood is a hair under a quarter inch. The plug looks a bit different because I coated the cross section of the plug with some epoxy as test to see if the insulation would melt, before I glued the basement skin back on during my bulkhead repair. Though I replaced most of the blue styrofoam insulation in the basement floor with polyurethane foam insulation (because diesel had melted much of the blue stuff near the fuel tank and in adjacent areas), there was still a few sections that were left that I didn't remove, so I wanted to make sure that the stuff wouldn't melt from the epoxy resin I wanted to use. It did not.
Don