2007 Weekend Warrior 3505LE - Good clean base - had a few issues

[BigQ]

I have had a few toy hauler pull behinds and wanted to try a 5th wheel, just didn't want to spend 80k on a new one. I only use it for myself and Glamis season so I didn't feel the need to get a new one. I liked the style of the older Weekend Warriors and the way they were built functional wise was good, the layout with lots of room, good appliances like 10 gal water heater and so on. I also knew they had a few issues with the wall sag on the triple axles. I found a 2007 that was pretty clean and the owner had used it to take a car out to Glamis and because of the weight he had new 7k axles added with Kodiak disc brakes and all the support for the walls and suspension was complete. The downside was a small area on the roof that was soft and the rear cap was cracked. I felt it would be a good base and I could probably fix the roof and cap myself as a project - even though I had never done that, but how complicated could it be? Well, the small area on the roof turned out to be total disintegration of the roof frame and the rear cap was ABS and had cracks all over the place from age and a bad install, and so this turned out to be a 6 month project right in the middle of the lumber price surge during covid...great. this is where it started.

 

[BigQ]

First thing that went out on me was the landing gear transmission. As with most it was a single motor with a gear transmission driving both legs. It barely lifted the 3505 since it was such a heavy pig. So I decided to add a dual motor direct drive legs from ultra fab and a Gamma Electronics control board.

 

[BigQ]

The next issue came up when I was looking into painting the ramp door. As I was cleaning it up to paint it I noticed a little damage to the wood in the corner - turned out to be a weak spot in the wood that went all the way through so I decided to just replace with new plywood and used bedliner paint to cover it. Only thing I regret looking back on this is not changing out the insulation. One issue was the OEM ramp was one piece and I had to replace it with two pieces. So I added a few cross supports 2x4's to help secure the new wood. It turned out to be a little heavier, but it is also quite a bit stronger.

 

[BigQ]

After using the trailer for a couple trips to Glamis, with the season over I decided to take a look at the roof soft spot. I was thinking maybe i could replace a couple small pieces of wood and glue the membrane back down. At this point i was pretty clueless and quickly realized I may have gotten more work than I wanted. The leak was right where the dumbass luggage rack was and the shower skylight.

After digging into the roof I quickly realized and decided I needed to just commit to replacing it all. My plan was to remove all the bad wood and add in new framing and support. I would remove one section at a time and rebuild it. I also added more support by running 2x4 all the way across at some points where they had 1x4. I still wanted to be mindful of keeping the weight down. One issue I had at the time was lumber was hard to come by because of covid and I needed 4x9 plywood. The pricing was insane and i ended up with roofing OSB 4x10. The insulation that Weekend Warrior put in was stupid and missing in most the roof. This is what it looed like after I pulled up the roof,lol.

And WTF!

These are some of the framing pics. I also cleaned up the wiring and added protection from rubbing. While I had the roof off i also ran new HDMI and audio cables along with electrical for USB charging locations.

 

[grumpy88]

Great work so far

 

[Kachina26]

Nice work.

 

[BigQ]

Maybe this part will help someone in the future. The rear cap that was cracked turned out to be ABS and it cracked at every location the put a screw through to attach it to the roof. Maybe they should have pre-drilled, but that doesn't matter now. Way to brittle and thin to try and fix. Turns out they no longer make that version, but they said the version for the 2008 slides right in place....right,lol. The new one is fiberglass so it could be fixed easier in the future. Anyway, I had to rebuild the rear back part the trailer to make the new cap fit. It came out pretty good and it is not going anywhere. I also changed up the light a little bit using a truck tailgate LED run that fit perfect, came out nice IMO.

This is what it looks like from the factory..

I bolted some aluminum angle to the top of the door frame and then through bolted the bottom 2x4 to help support the cap bottom...

Finished with adding more support with 2x4 and plating along with extra support for the bed motor. the bed motor was barely hanging on from the factory. they had 4 bolts on it but two of them just went between the wood they originally had.

 

[grumpy88]

Great work . Any inside work being done

 

[intense]

please keep up with the updates lots of good info here

 

[Get415]

Very impressive. Thats a lot of work

 

[rivermobster]

Quite the project! I have a WW myself. I feel your pain...

 

[BigQ]

Great work . Any inside work being done

Yes, nothing major. I had to pull the shower wall to double check the framing for water damage. Luckily no water damage, but the shower wall broke. So I got rid of the slider door and added an extend rod with a new wall. The other items were some new lights with USB chargers on them for the bed area. Also, change out some of the floor in the bathroom and put down some Polycuramine coating and some black diamond plate in the garage area. I wanted to keep that WW checker floor for now, came out pretty good.

 

[outboard_256]

Nice work

 

[BigQ]

So finally ready for the membrane and i also ran electrical so I could put a MaxxAir vent with remote in the living area and also added one in the bathroom. The electrical was already in place for the second AC so I added a 13.5 in the bedroom.

So a little tip if someone is doing this in the future. To get all the air bubbles out the first try, before you add glue lay the membrane over the entire trailer - even it out and take about 10lbs sand in trash bags and put them on the back part so it won't move- then roll back the front half - lay the glue down - then slowly roll the first half out while using your hands to push from the middle to the edge of the roof, i found that worked better then the squeegee that was suggested. then do the same thing to the back half of the trailer. I tried folding at first and it did not go well.

 

[boatnam2]

Nice work, man them things were built shitty, looks like they found wood of out of a scrape pile to build it.

 

[braindead]

So finally ready for the membrane and i also ran electrical so I could put a MaxxAir vent with remote in the living area and also added one in the bathroom. The electrical was already in place for the second AC so I added a 13.5 in the bedroom.

So a little tip if someone is doing this in the future. To get all the air bubbles out the first try, before you add glue lay the membrane over the entire trailer - even it out and take about 10lbs sand in trash bags and put them on the back part so it won't move- then roll back the front half - lay the glue down - then slowly roll the first half out while using your hands to push from the middle to the edge of the roof, i found that worked better then the squeegee that was suggested. then do the same thing to the back half of the trailer. I tried folding at first and it did not go well.

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Where did you pick up your roofing materials from?

 

[BigQ]

Where did you pick up your roofing materials from?

Alpha Systems Superflex - Lippert sells it - https://store.lci1.com/95ft-superflex-roofing-membrane-superflex-9-5.html