Hi , we have had an ongoing issue with water leaking from the middle of the outside hard lid hinge of our expanda. We noticed it particularly bad when washing the van and hosing/rinsing the hinge directly with water, water would get up under the hinge and leak under the hard lid onto the canvas. Jayco have said this would be expected if the water is coming horizontally (so to speak) from a hose onto the hinge. Has anyone had a similar experience or are we being given a brush off. We have had our new van in numerous times for warranty issues. Cheers.
Water leak from middle of Hard lid hinge
- Thread starter summer01
- Start date
Found ours leaks the other day, even with heavy dew. Will be pulling the hard lid off this weekend and removing both halves from van and lid and resealing.
Ours went back a few times for water leaks. in the end Jayco took the lid off and resealed it. According to them the factory does not use enough sealant. Seems OK so far however have not had it in huge downpours like before. We shall wait and see. If its still under warranty get them to reseal the whole lid.
I have removed the hard lid by sliding hard lid out of of the hinge, unscrewed the hinge assembly 1/2 from van and other 1/2 from the hard lid. Cleaned the sikaflex that was there off, filled both hinges with new sikaflex and re-screwed them to van and hard lid. Re-fitted hard lid by sliding 2 hinges together. If it leaks now there will be trouble.
Looks like where about to find out, its starting to rain.
Looks like where about to find out, its starting to rain.
I have the same issue with mine. However Jayco said there was enough sealant etc and its just the way it is. However one of the guys at jayco pointed out that the front lid opens a bit higher than the rear lid and as the lid has a curve on it, the curve nearest the hinge line causes the lid to be more or less level so water will pool there. His solution was to move the bottom of the two black "lifters" (dunno what you call em but the things that help you lift the lid up and keep it up) down about 1cm and this causes the lid to then have a steeper angle away from the camper and water will not pool. I hope this makes sense.
Am about to do mine as they refuse to fix it.
Cheers
Mike
Am about to do mine as they refuse to fix it.
Cheers
Mike
Mike, if the water gets in between the hinge and lid then it's not the way it is, if this is the case id do what I did and seal along the edge of hinge. Be careful moving the struts as Jayco suggested, it will put more stress on the screws that secure the strut end to lid and they could strip out. If you want to do this then I'd make longer aluminium brackets with more screws to deal with the extra stress! My 2 c worth 
cheers.
cheers.
Gday Burnsey,
Im pretty disappointed at jaycos response to my leaking hinge line, they flat out refused to do anything to fix it saying there is enough sealant etc. Mate to be honest I couldnt wait to get my van out of there, they did a really poor job of everything else that had to be fixed. Id rather do it myself.
Are you guys using sikaflex on the actual rotating part of the hinge line? Or are you guys sealing the part of the hinge that is screwed to the structure?
Cheers
Mike
Im pretty disappointed at jaycos response to my leaking hinge line, they flat out refused to do anything to fix it saying there is enough sealant etc. Mate to be honest I couldnt wait to get my van out of there, they did a really poor job of everything else that had to be fixed. Id rather do it myself.
Are you guys using sikaflex on the actual rotating part of the hinge line? Or are you guys sealing the part of the hinge that is screwed to the structure?
Cheers
Mike
I only needed to seal along the long edge of the hinge that is on the lid side, the centre pivot of hinge seemed to seal ok. I agree with the angle on the front lid when it's up, from about half way it tends to run back to the hinge so i'm pretty sure this will fix your leak, well it did with mine! I just masked up both sides of the edge with about a 4 or 5mm gap, so the edge of hinge is in the middle of the gap, run your sika along then smooth off with wet finger and remove tape.....easy as.
Hi Andy, unfortunately I have nothing that would show much, I don't have this van anymore. Maybe Mike7 could post some pics of his after its sealed? Other than that all I can do is post a pic of the hard lid/hinge on our 18, and to be honest I haven't taken any notice if the edge is sealed on it.......maybe another job!
cheers.
Our front bed lid leaked on the weekend ,there was a heap of water on the canvas roof i noticed not only do the bed lids curve send water back to the hinge but the edge of the hinge is higher than the middle .We are getting a new lid in a few weeks so i hope they fix the leak then,fingers crossed.The reason for the new lid is there was some bad scratches on the original.
Going away in a weeks time am not going to get the chance to take hardlid off and re-seal, have thought of getting some rubber strips about 200mm wide at clark rubber and laying it over the top of the length of the hinges, do ya reckon that would work.
Andy
Andy
i think the water will seep under some rubber.What i have done this week is get some 100x50 pvc downpipe from bunnings and rip it up the middle and sit it on top of the canvas to catch the drips and drain off to the side.Of course it hasn`t looked like raining but better to be prepared.
