My folks have a '99 Coleman Mesa pop-up camper that I use almost exclusively. The maintenance for it is in my court. I took it out this weekend to a VW event/lawnmower race in Stevenson, AL because I had the dog and needed AC to keep him happy during the day. While I was there, I noticed that the seal around the top had shrunk up quite a bit over the last year or so since I've used it. We took it out in October and I noticed that about 2" had opened up at the seam, so I put tape over it to keep wasps out. This time, the tape had fallen off, the wasp nest was small and the front corners had shrunken up so much that the seal fell off and short cut across the corner. I tried wrestling it on and gave up. When I got home, I turned to the inter webs.
Google told me that a seller on ebay has the replacement seal. It's similar but not exactly original. Instead of a multi-ribbed bottom edge, there is just a bulb that is compressed when the top is down. Google reassured me that this is what most everyone was doing as well. Google and my wallet have not agreed that ~$150 is necessary to remedy what appears to be less than a foot of needed seal (the old seal isn't bad; just too short).
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ABS-ROOF-SEAL-4 ... 1418225470
I have tried searching, without much luck, for ways to recondition a quality original seal to restretch it. I've seen where people have boiled car trim pieces to get them back to original.
I think I have 3 options:
1- restretch the original back out ~6"
2- Order <1 foot of new seal and pull the old off and get it stuck back on with the replacement spanning the now larger gap
3- shell out for the lesser quality replacement.
My preferred choice is #1, but I am reaching a dead end. Does anyone have any experience with stretching old, shrunk up rubber?
Google told me that a seller on ebay has the replacement seal. It's similar but not exactly original. Instead of a multi-ribbed bottom edge, there is just a bulb that is compressed when the top is down. Google reassured me that this is what most everyone was doing as well. Google and my wallet have not agreed that ~$150 is necessary to remedy what appears to be less than a foot of needed seal (the old seal isn't bad; just too short).
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ABS-ROOF-SEAL-4 ... 1418225470
I have tried searching, without much luck, for ways to recondition a quality original seal to restretch it. I've seen where people have boiled car trim pieces to get them back to original.
I think I have 3 options:
1- restretch the original back out ~6"
2- Order <1 foot of new seal and pull the old off and get it stuck back on with the replacement spanning the now larger gap
3- shell out for the lesser quality replacement.
My preferred choice is #1, but I am reaching a dead end. Does anyone have any experience with stretching old, shrunk up rubber?