Chasing a water leak - 2018 Alante 31R

[cfisher523]

I've been chasing a water leak for a while now. The carpet under the passenger side dash would get damp. The hole where the mirror wires pass through would be damp. I resealed the windows, resealed the mirror, pulled the interior trim work to inspect the front cap... nothing.

Today I pulled the trim cover where the front cap meets the sidewall. Found the penetration. The front cap slides over the sidewalls, leaving a seam (crack, overlap, etc.) on the back (mirror) side of the joint. Butyl tape is installed under the metal trim rails which also seals against water being driven into the joint by forward motion. The back side though, where the overlap occurs, I found no sealant of any kind. So, any time water would get behind the rubber trim cover it would run down the rail and penetrate between the overlapping fiberglass, entering the interior wall cavity.

Why no one at Jayco thought it would be a good idea to seal this joint I will never know. However, if you find yourself with a similar mystery leak it might be worth a look. I pulled the driver's side and it was sealed up, so I guess whoever was working the passenger side on assembly day was hung over or something.

Anyway, we'll know for sure next rainfall, but a tube of sealant and whole lot of scraping and cleaning away old caulk/sealant and it seems to be sealed up pretty good now. Hopefully this little adventure helps someone else at some point.

[Parrott]

My passenger floor on my 31UL was getting wet. Mine was coming in the mirror and through the hole where the wires went through inside. Removed the mirror and sealed the hole. No more leak. I also through bolted mirror as it was just screwed with wood screws and the water had messed up the wood backing material. The previous owner had problems and the dealer sealed the weep holes under the mirror frame mount. Go figure. Such a big hole for the wires.

[cfisher523]

Wow, that hole is drilled low too. Mine is large, to accomodate the plug on the power mirror, but mine is at least high within the bolt pattern. With the hole so low and your weep covered no wonder it was getting in.

I also drilled through and nut/bolted the mirror, but I had no choice as a result of an unfortunate incident with a toll booth.

[SamJ]

Charles,

Thank you so much for posting this! I was searching for Alante 'leaks' and it seems you have the exact issue and difficult-to-find leak I have. Having sealed up as much of the window that I could imagine as the source of the leak, I was moving on to the mirror and front cap seals. I will lean on yours and Parrot's experiences in finally solving this leak. For what it is worth, I also had a poor seal along the front and top edge of the window - resealing from the outside resolved about 75% of my water intrusion issue, but it appears that I still have a bit more to fix.

I'd bet we could compare manufacture dates and find we had the same dates and hung over passenger side crew working on our MH.

Thanks for sharing!