Repair of floor in 23RB

[Atlee]

I have a 2017 Jay Flight 23RB trailer bought at the end of June 2017 so it's still under warranty.

My problem is one of the lag bolts that holds the 5/8" plywood flooring down has backed itself out at least 1/2" already. Right now there is a very large "tent" in the linoleum floor covering.

I know that the dealer/Jayco is still responsible for fixing the floor. I also have read that one solution Jayco has come up with is to remove all the furniture and cabinets and put new linoleum down. I don't want to do that, even if it were done at the factory.

I'd like to slit the linoleum just enough to tighten the bolt down, and then seam seal the slit linoleum.

My big question is this. If I can tighten the bolt down, what will make it stay put? I don't want a repeat of what I have now. Is there anything I can put on the bolt to make sure it stays down? Gorilla Glue? Loctite Red (permanent) or Loctite Blue (not so permanent)? Anything else?

And by the way, I have another bolt just starting the process. Right now it's just a tiny bump in the flooring.

Thanks.

[suzieshome]

I would leave it to the professionals. What if you don’t seal the slit properly? Why don’t you want them to do it? Timing? Make an appointment for the off season. Who knows, it may take them all winter and you get free storage.

[Atlee]

You make a good point about me being able to seal the floor correctly. May not be able to. However, I've watched a number of videos on YouTube, so I think I can.

As for why I don't want the professionals to do it. Which ones do you mean? And to do what? If the repair means taking up the entire floor, which includes taking up the cabinets and furniture on the floor, that's something I'd not let the dealer do. It would have to go back to Indiana to the factory. And I'm not sure I want to pull the trailer up to Middlebury in January, or February. Those are my down months.

If it's just a matter of making a couple of slits, tightening the bolt down, and then sealing the slit, I do suspect I could do that as well as a mechanic at the dealer.

As far as free storage goes, I have that now, in my driveway.

Actually, my biggest concern is keeping the bolt down, and it not backing it's way back out. Wouldn't want to do this again.

Originally Posted by suzieshome

I would leave it to the professionals. What if you don’t seal the slit properly? Why don’t you want them to do it? Timing? Make an appointment for the off season. Who knows, it may take them all winter and you get free storage.

[ALJO]

Atlee: for the floor to chassis they use carriage bolts and are able to be tighten from the chassis side. For flooring ply they use screws and yes they can back out and eventually will split the vinyl when it is cold in the winter. As your thinking is I would do the same as you just make the split and try to fasten it with glue so it doesn't back out. For vinyl you can get a sealer.

[tott9713]

I’m with the OP on this one. If their plan of attack is to completely gut the trailer and lay new floor after tightening Id think very hard before going that route knowing how some of these service depts operate.

[suzieshome]

Makes sense, if you don’t trust your dealer

[Atlee]

To be 100% accurate, taking out all the cabinets, etc isn't what has been proposed. I haven't even taken it to the dealer yet. I'm in Richmond, VA and dealer is in Raleigh, NC.

But the radical solution is what mentioned to another person who has the same problem.

But I don't have until winter to fix the problem anyway. We'll be heading out in 3 weeks and will be on the go all fall. And I have other stuff to do to the trailer to get it ready.

But if it isn't fixed soon, a tear is going to develop in the flooring.

I'll probably get Gorilla Glue or the equivalent to hopefully hold the screw down after I screw back in.

I have seam sealer already.

Originally Posted by tott9713

I’m with the OP on this one. If their plan of attack is to completely gut the trailer and lay new floor after tightening Id think very hard before going that route knowing how some of these service depts operate.

[Atlee]

I cut and peeled back the linoleum floor to get at the screw that had backed it's way out of the floor, causing a "tent" to form in the linoleum floor.

The screw is 4" long with one end looking like a wood screw, but the threads are fine and the other end is blunt and looks like a machine screw.

Also, notice in one of the pictures, there is a second hole. Seems like the person assembling the floor tried to put the screw there, failed, and moved it over s speck.

Not sure what to do now. One thing I will do is find a thin metal rod and poke it down the hole to see what is under there. After that, I may put wood glue down the hole, stuff wooden tooth picks in the same hole, and then put a proper wood screw in the hole.

I just poked a thin metal rod down the hole. It came to rest on metal. Since the screw is 4" long, I presume the metal is the chassis frame. I may end up just dipping wooden tooth picks in wood glue, and filling up the hole, and then put a proper wood screw back in the hole.

Any thoughts?

[oldmanAZ]

It looks to me from the 'blunt' end, that it is a metal, self-tapping screw.

Have you tried re-installing the same screw into the metal below?

[Atlee]

Not yet. However, the very thin piece of metal, from an old wiper blade, should have found the hole the screw went into, but it felt solid.

I had envisioned a bolt and nut holding the 2" x 3" floor joists to the relatively thick steel chassis, and the 5/8" thick plywood deck being screwed to the joist with a wood screw.

Originally Posted by oldmanAZ

It looks to me from the 'blunt' end, that it is a metal, self-tapping screw.

Have you tried re-installing the same screw into the metal below?

[nko2000]

That’s bummer Errol. Where in the floor is it, I want to see if I may have the same thing starting?

[Atlee]

I revisited the "scene of the crime" this morning. Glad I did. I put that thin piece of metal in the hole again. This time, about 3" down I hit a metal edge. I poked around some more and my thin metal edge dropped down to nearly 8" and hit "bottom" so to speak. There was no more holes to go through.

Due to today's discovery, I've come to the conclusion that the screw/bolt I pulled out of the floor actually goes through the 5/8" plywood deck, but also through the 2"x3" floor joist, and then screws into and through the top flange of the trailer chassis. The Jay Flight chassis have an I-Beam frame and the self tapping screw screws through the top flange on the I-beam frame, and through it for about 3/8" inch.

In any case, I bought some permanent Loctite put it on the screw and screwed it back in place. I don't doubt that much of the Loctite probably came off as I screwed it back through the wood. After that, I used linoleum seam sealer to put the cut flooring back down. It worked out pretty well. If you are looking for it, you can see the slice in the flooring, but if you are not, I think the repair passes muster.

The first picture is a close up of the screw. Note near the bottom there is a darker ring. I believe this is where it rest in the metal I-beam frame.

The second picture is the mended floor.

Originally Posted by Atlee

Not yet. However, the very thin piece of metal, from an old wiper blade, should have found the hole the screw went into, but it felt solid.

I had envisioned a bolt and nut holding the 2" x 3" floor joists to the relatively thick steel chassis, and the 5/8" thick plywood deck being screwed to the joist with a wood screw.

[Atlee]

Mine was coming up a few inches in front of the stove. There is another one beginning to back it's way out. It is directly across the aisle from the one that's in front of the stove. The new one is near where the table for the dinette is.

I didn't repair this one yet. I want to see how my first repair holds up, before cutting the flooring in the new location.

Originally Posted by nko2000

That’s bummer Errol. Where in the floor is it, I want to see if I may have the same thing starting?

[venoran]

Atlee -

EDIT: I should actually read all the posts, didn't see your post about fixing it. I'll leave this here anyway in case anyone else has this problem.

I'll drop in my $0.02 as a mechanical engineer. Good find on this, that is a self tapping machine screw...not really a common beast, but easy to fix if the hole isn't stripped out.

Looks like it either was never fastened down properly or backed out.

This is basically a quick install heavy screw for holding the flooring and structure (2x4's and subfloor) to the metal chassis beams, so I would not even consider leaving it out. Since you found a hole in the metal below, that is good news...all you need to do is put the screw back in. Looks like it has an allen head, so you will need to find a allen (hex) wrench or an adapter that fits for an electric drill/driver.

If you can put the screw in the hole and get it to thread in, job is easy...you can put some blue (semi-permanent) loctite on the last 5 threads of the screw and then screw it down tight.

If the screw won't start threading, you will have to apply either power tool help or a lot of elbow grease with an allen wrench. Make sure to push hard and apply a lot of down-force on the screw into the hole to keep from just stripping out the hole and rounding off the self-threading cutting edges of the screw. If you get it to thread in, congratulations...job done, you can probably leave it as is without taking it out because the extreme friction of driving the screw in and forming threads will tend to lock them in even without Loctite.

If you can't get that to work, then you may have to re-drill the hole 1/2" away with a long drill bit and try again. It looks to be a 1/4-20 size screw, though hard to tell without measuring. If so a 13/64" drill bit would be the right size...but it may be hard to find one long enough. They are called "aircraft" or "aircraft extension" drills and are often 6-12" long.

To drive the screw in and cut the threads, my preference would be to do this with an impact driver with a hex bit if you have one. Manual elbow-grease method preference would be a socket wrench adapter over to a hex bit.

[Atlee]

One bad thing I did, after ready what you wrote. I used red Locite. I was going back and forth between the two, but I just don't want that self taping machine screw to back out again.

Originally Posted by venoran

Atlee -

EDIT: I should actually read all the posts, didn't see your post about fixing it. I'll leave this here anyway in case anyone else has this problem.

I'll drop in my $0.02 as a mechanical engineer. Good find on this, that is a self tapping machine screw...not really a common beast, but easy to fix if the hole isn't stripped out.

Looks like it either was never fastened down properly or backed out.

This is basically a quick install heavy screw for holding the flooring and structure (2x4's and subfloor) to the metal chassis beams, so I would not even consider leaving it out. Since you found a hole in the metal below, that is good news...all you need to do is put the screw back in. Looks like it has an allen head, so you will need to find a allen (hex) wrench or an adapter that fits for an electric drill/driver.

If you can put the screw in the hole and get it to thread in, job is easy...you can put some blue (semi-permanent) loctite on the last 5 threads of the screw and then screw it down tight.

If the screw won't start threading, you will have to apply either power tool help or a lot of elbow grease with an allen wrench. Make sure to push hard and apply a lot of down-force on the screw into the hole to keep from just stripping out the hole and rounding off the self-threading cutting edges of the screw. If you get it to thread in, congratulations...job done, you can probably leave it as is without taking it out because the extreme friction of driving the screw in and forming threads will tend to lock them in even without Loctite.

If you can't get that to work, then you may have to re-drill the hole 1/2" away with a long drill bit and try again. It looks to be a 1/4-20 size screw, though hard to tell without measuring. If so a 13/64" drill bit would be the right size...but it may be hard to find one long enough. They are called "aircraft" or "aircraft extension" drills and are often 6-12" long.

To drive the screw in and cut the threads, my preference would be to do this with an impact driver with a hex bit if you have one. Manual elbow-grease method preference would be a socket wrench adapter over to a hex bit.

[venoran]

Originally Posted by Atlee

One bad thing I did, after ready what you wrote. I used red Locite. I was going back and forth between the two, but I just don't want that self taping machine screw to back out again.

No worries, it is just that red loctite is permanent...the screw will twist off or strip the head out before you get it back out most times unless you use a torch to heat the screw.

In your case, you really don't want it coming out again and I doubt there would be any reason to ever dig up the floor and remove that screw. Just don't use it on anything you might want to take apart again easily!