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  1. #1
    Rolling Along
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    Side wall repairs

    Has anyone had to have their exterior sidewall repaired on a Solitude? I was sick a couple of weeks ago and hauling a load of firewood on my flatbed trailer and apparently a piece of wood was hanging over the edge and it hooked my rear corner of the Solitude and put a gouge in the side. Now I need it repaired and a new corner molding and new decal. The decal was over 200.00 and the corner molding was 17.00 plus 100.00 for shipping, ouch! The damaged area is only about 6 inches in length, but the wood under the gel coat is cracked, not a hard repair, just kind of made me sicker than I was. I didn't notice the damage for about 5 days until I was feeling better. I don't know whether to try to tint gel coat or just have paint matched for the repair. Thinking about using some of my prior experience as a body guy to fix it.
    2023 GMC 3500HD CCLB DRW Duramax L5P, Banks Derringer/Idash/CAI 60 gallon fuel transfer tank
    2018 Solitude 310GK with Kodiak disc brakes 4000 lb Dexter springs, frame stiffeners
    RETIRED Maint Supervisor, Certified Welder, ASE Master Tech, Owner tire shop

  2. #2
    Site Sponsor sande005's Avatar
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    Feb 2017
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    White Bear Lake, MN
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    If you've done body work, and it is not structural/load bearing you should be just fine. I punched a divot into my old 5th with the corner of the tailgate. Hardest part was finding paint to match. Finally had to take a compartment door into an auto parts shop, and had them mix to match, as nothing on the shelf was close. I'm a model airplane guy, so had lots of glues, epoxies, finishing materials around. But auto store Bondo, etc. will work too. In my case, I used thin CA glue (from the hobby store) to bond the cracks in the underlayment (does a terrible job of gap filling, though). Note that polyester resin (Bondo) will not set up if put over CA - so paint the area with 5 min epoxy first. Or, if the damage is a bit more than just hairline cracks that appear only when you press on it, skip the CA and just use epoxy. Use a heat gun to get the wood hot, then paint on the epoxy - the heat thins the epoxy so it will soak in better. Don't heat the epoxy directly, or it will set VERY quickly! When all that is set, fill with Bondo and sand smooth. I then put a patch of very light fiberglass cloth (hobby store) over that, and sealed with 2 coats of epoxy finishing resin hobby store, again!). Did preliminary sanding to smooth it all out, and started getting it feathered into the surrounding area. Just take care to not sand away the fiberglass too much. Then it was a matter of giving a few coats of primer, wet sanding between each one, until the edges were feathered and the weave was all filled smooth. Then finally a few coats of paint, wet sanding each coat. My paint match wasn't perfect, so in the right light at the right angle, you could tell. But even when asked, a casual observer couldn't tell where the patch was, so I counted that as done. Sounds more time consuming than it was. Only took an hour or two, spread over about 3 days (drying time).
    2017 Imagine 2670MK
    2012 F-150 SCrew, Eco, 4x4 6.5 box
    Max. Tow, HD Payload, Airbags, ProPride hitch
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  3. #3
    Long Hauler geotex1's Avatar
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    Ugh! I'm sorry... I'm sure you're beating yourself up over too (I would). Unfortunately, you will never achieve an exact match with a gel coat repair. Really close, but at some angle it can be found as that's just the nature of the beast... Easy enough to fix the damage as sande005 took you down the path. I'm responding because sometimes the best repair is to not match at all. For instance, is the location one where you can add a utility door? Can you modify the graphic decal to to cover the whole area, or add a new one to do so? You will be amazed what a sign shop can do that prints and cuts vinyl (my nephew does this), and how it can be more cost-effective. On our last camper, I got a pretty good gouge that tore through a decal and nearly all the way through the filon on my kitchen slide from storm wind cast debris. The matching decals were out of production for years! My nephew came over and traced the decal before I removed it. I filled and leveled the gouge, and sealed it and the surrounding scuffed area, which I kept VERY tightly controlled in size by using guidelines. He came back with the tracing and free-handed some refinements that covered the patch area, went back to his shop and made a new decal, and installed it the following weekend. The match was so good and covered the original's ghosting and the repair area so well that it was imperceptible, and Nikki thought I did a lot more work than I did! LOL!

    So, maybe patch, level, and seal the repair and put a decal over it?
    Rob & Nikki + Cloverfield
    2020 Grand Design Solitude S-Class 3350RL
    2015 RAM 3500 Longhorn Laramie Crew Cab, Long Bed, 4x4 Dually Cummins/AISIN

    Mountains of Pennsylvania

  4. #4
    Rolling Along
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    Several good ideas. I have the paint code from Grand Design, because on the day I picked up the 5er the sales person found two areas of damage that he didn't know was there. There was a scrape on the rear lower panel where the delivery driver must have brushed against something and there was a big chip in the paint on the front cap, probably from a big rock hitting it. It is about 1 inch in diameter and completely chipped away the clear coat and some of the color down to the primer. Since I drove 400 miles to pick up the camper, I just took it as is. The dealer sent me a replacement lower metal piece and I repaired that. I haven't gotten around to repairing the paint yet, so now would be a good time now that the temps are starting to warm up.
    2023 GMC 3500HD CCLB DRW Duramax L5P, Banks Derringer/Idash/CAI 60 gallon fuel transfer tank
    2018 Solitude 310GK with Kodiak disc brakes 4000 lb Dexter springs, frame stiffeners
    RETIRED Maint Supervisor, Certified Welder, ASE Master Tech, Owner tire shop

  5. #5
    New Member
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    Hello do you have the paint code for the cream outside color I too have a hole I have to repair. Thanks

  6. #6
    Setting Up Camp
    Join Date
    May 2019
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    Houston
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    I have a reflection 2018 BH and would love the paint coat as well. Did some fiberglass patching on a crack. I've emailed GD for the paint code as well. thanks!

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