water leak, 15B

[Pender Paul]

Three days of heavy rain at Cowichan last weekend was too much for the trailer. Water started pooling on the floor between the wall and the floor fitting for the pedestal table leg. Water was not leaking from any of the fresh water lines or the water heater. I see that there is a slight upturning of the belly gasket behind the spare tire. Anybody else having this problem? If so, what did you use to stop the leak?

[sunrisetrucker]

Check your window seals. That would be my first guess. The belly band is mostly cosmetic.

[Iowa Dave]

Pinch the belly band between your fingers and pull it out of the groove. It’s easy to put back in. Get an ice pick or a straight piece of wire. Poke in in the Rivet holes. It should only go in a short distance before it hits something solid. Don’t go too far and poke through the elephant hide inside. If you don’t hit anything you have one or more bad rivets that Escape installed in 2013. There were three on our 21. They never leaked but when the factory installed solar on our 21 they pulled the belly band and checked them all and re-riveted three. There’s probably an older post on this if you can search for it or another reader can reference it. Not especially your specific problem but one that new owners of an older unit or those who weren’t reading the forum back in the day missed. Also do you have little drain holes at the bottom of the rear window. That was another post that the Escape factory did for us on the Solar install trip along with an improved gasket on the front box.
Hope this helps.
Iowa Dave

[Doug2000]

I had 2 leaks in my 2007 Escape 17B at about the age of 10 years. First one was the bathroom fan. The 9" x 9" fan wasn't flat anymore and the weather stripping was compressed. I ordered a new vent off of Amazon and put it on. The other issue was the front side fixed window. The rubber seal to the glass dried up and shrunk a bit. I removed the rubber and reinstalled the glass with some Black RTV sealant because that what I had on my tool box at the time. Worked perfect looked like the factory seal.