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Old 10-17-2017, 11:54 PM   #1
johntaves
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Default 04 Crescendo 8356 DP rear cap question

I have soot coming into the rear bedroom. I have removed the rear fiberglass cap and found the cause. (See photos below) I am wondering if someone has a similar RV that can tell me what it looks like if you look up inside the rear engine access grill. There is a shelf that runs above the radiator and is attached to the rear wall. There is a few rubber sheets that form a shroud that essentially directs the air from the radiator out (or in) to the rear grill without spreading up and sideways behind the rear cap.

In mine, I think the previous owner attempted to stop the soot getting into the coach by spraying the expanding foam stuff up and around the rubber skirt and has essentially glued that rubber sheeting and the shelf to the rear fiberglass cap. I am having to bust out all that foam crap in order to free that shelf from the fiberglass so that I can reattach it to the back wall before fitting the cap over it. I am betting that a coach with a properly sealed back wall/roof/side wall will not have the foam crap and you'll be able to see that the shelf I am talking about is not attached to the rear cap, nor foamed to it either. Can someone confirm this for me?

Maybe any DP with the rear center radiator will be built similarly.

FWIW, below are the photos showing how the soot gets into the interior.

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Old 10-18-2017, 01:00 PM   #2
Frutza
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Are those pics with the cap removed? I will look closer, but I can tell you they were very liberal with the spray foam
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Old 10-18-2017, 11:56 PM   #3
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Are those pics with the cap removed?
Yes, the top photo is the top right corner looking forward. You're seeing the back wall that is normally hidden by the cap. The bottom photo is looking from the roof down the passenger side wall. You can see the rear cap at the top of the photo, pulled away from the back.
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Old 10-19-2017, 05:05 PM   #4
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Well ,all I see looking from the bottom is the flap around the radiator and then foam fills everything in the corner and starts down the wall.
WOW you removed the rear cap? howd that go?
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Old 10-19-2017, 11:50 PM   #5
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Well ,all I see looking from the bottom is the flap around the radiator and then foam fills everything in the corner and starts down the wall.
WOW you removed the rear cap? howd that go?
It is pretty easy to remove the rear cap. However, the foam made it impossible to take apart without breaking stuff. A rubber skirt is sandwiched by a metal plate to something above the radiator and riveted and bolted in place from the other side. The other side seems to be an awful crawl across the engine and under the bed in a space that measures a few inches. I declined that approach and instead just cut the skirt (see below). Why it is so important to attach the skirt above half of the radiator in a way that cannot be removed escapes my understanding. The radiator expansion tank is to the right and allows plenty of air to move in the direction that the skirt seems determined to prevent.


There is a shelf that was screwed to the rear wall and was pulled out because, until you yank the back cap away from the coach, you don't even know it is there or how it is attached. Even if you knew the screws were there you cannot get to 2 of them. The shelf and the skirt must be attached first, and then the cap is attached, and then the foam is squirted along where I marked in red below and continuing on the other side of that vertical barrier. That vertical barrier prevents you from getting to anything in the area marked in red, except by going from the bottom up. That area is very narrow, so there's no chance of doing anything meaningful up there to detach stuff properly.


The last photo shows the underside of the shelf that is visible when the cap is in place by sticking your head inside the grill and looking up. The red shows where the foam glued it to the rear cap. I plan on leaving it glued to the rear cap and screwing the angle iron, that will be reattached to the shelf, to the back wall once the cap is back in place. I will not be able to put screws into the far right side on the other side of the vertical barrier.

I need to vent a bit here. What jerks designed this? Seriously, what is wrong with putting some flexible gasket along the shelf back cap intersection, instead of gluing the shelf to the cap with foam? What idiot thought of screwing the shelf and rubber skirt into the back wall, then covering the screws with mountains of foam? What is the purpose of the imbecile sandwich that mates the skirt to the top half of the radiator? I have difficulty believing that anyone with half an ounce of design skills could not have come up with something just as cheap to build but was removable. I am left wondering if they are that stupid or if there is some heat issue.

Maybe when I reassemble I will put insulation below the shelf, where I have removed inches of foam, and then run the new skirt up and horizontally below the shelf with the insulation above it.
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Old 10-25-2017, 06:14 PM   #6
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Well, your better at this than I am. I took pictures ,uploaded but I can't figure out how to get them here? Well there uploaded, I guess you can look at the album, I don't see any gaps like you have, but, I didn't get that involved, good luck
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Old 10-26-2017, 11:22 AM   #7
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Well, your better at this than I am. I took pictures ,uploaded but I can't figure out how to get them here? Well there uploaded, I guess you can look at the album, I don't see any gaps like you have, but, I didn't get that involved, good luck
(I am a computer expert, I run http://pnwsoft.com, so yea, I have no problem getting images on the forum.)

Where is your album? I eager to see your photos. There should be a way to "share" the album or get the url of it to give to others to view it.
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Old 10-27-2017, 08:25 AM   #8
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http://www.gsowners.com/forums/album.php?albumid=11
There we go
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