Water leak following a drive in heavy rain...(Edited for search purposes)

MonicaNOCO

Hi all - have searched and not found a discussion that looks like my issue yet.  I purchased a used 2014 T@B 320 S 7 days ago and have been camping in it since.

we already discovered an issue wherein the glycol overflow tube was taped to the end of the hot water over flow tube....  and I have all thee over flow tubes draining out through the rubber stopper now. 

Friday we hitched up for the second time, to haul out for a night in a different location.  When we got there (2 hour drive) I double checked those overflow tubes - they were still connected to the rubber stopper. And the cabinet was dry. 

Saturday morning there were no issues.  We had not turned on the Alde system at all, and had no hookups there.   We had rain over night.  Then we drove two hours back to our home base - much of that was in heavy rain. 

When we arrived, there was water all over the floor - enough to soak the floor rug in the kitchen.  The Alde compartment was wettest, and evidence it drained under the seat cabinets out into the open. ( over flow tubes still correctly seated)  No walls or seat cushions were wet.  Not wet inside the freshwater tank cabinet or under the fridge, nor in the bathroom.

thoughts?  Surely that’s not road water splashing up into the cabin.  I did use the hot water last week - so that system should have had water in it - could that have drained out on the drive into the cabinet? 

DougH

@MonicaNOCO ; Consider adding the front window to your list of possible causes too (if you have one).  Easy to get gallon(s) of water all over floor if driving in a heavy rain... (personal experience).  Depending on your towing angle you may have no water on front counter, and a LOT of water in the back. It took quite a bit of tweaking to be able to shoot a hose at full force from all angles and not have any leaks from our front window.

MonicaNOCO

Thanks, Doug -- no front window.

Sharon_is_SAM

Check out the caulking of the wheel wells.  They share the area of the Alde and have been an issue in the past hence this “seal” maintenance notice.

https://tab-rv.vanillacommunity.com/discussion/6393/maintenance-notices

MonicaNOCO

Huh!  Ok - I stuck my head under there, and the most obvious seal seems well caulked.... but it will take a bit more close examination.  (it's raining again.... :-\  )  Thank you for the reference!!!

Bayliss

@MonicaNOCO, I agree with @Sharon_is_SAM's suggestion.  This discussion thread may be of interest as well:

https://tab-rv.vanillacommunity.com/discussion/9923/caulking-guide#latest

ScottG

Maybe check for infiltration around the taillights as well. Once you get things dried out, a good blast with a garden hose might help reveal a leak.

ScottG

Although rare, it's also not unheard of to have leaks in the internal plumbing. I vaguely recall one owner who had a water leak in their Alde. In that case the giveaway was that the little drip pan under the Alde would fill up first. I've personally experienced a leak (albeit a very small one) in a cold water fitting behind the bathroom wall.

MonicaNOCO

Thanks for all the suggestion, everyone! Once we finally got a day dry enough to look closely, we discovered the source of the leak - which has brought up a new set of questions — 

The drivers side tire was so close to the plastic wheel well liner, that it wore a hole in it...!   The tires are still very new.  We’ve temporarily fixed this now by duck taping the wheel well, and inserting washers between the tire and lug bolts ( opposite side from lug nuts) to space the tire out further from the camper body. 

But - when we look at the axel - it is not centered. The whole tab body is offset a bit.  Is this normal?  Have others had issues of tires rubbing the wheel wells? 

falcon1970

Washers behind the wheel could be unsafe!  You should query nuCamp about this ASAP.  If the axle has shifted left to right there is much more wrong than just the tire rubbing on the inner wheel well.  Your TAB may have been in an accident at some point in its life.

MonicaNOCO

Thanks for your observation, Falcon1970...  My brother in law used to be a tire guy, and says it’s safe enough for my trip back home.  But contacting NuCamp is a good suggestion. 

ScottG

Glad you found the source of the leak, but no, this is definately not normal, and is the first time I've heard of such a problem.
 
I think your tire is the correct size so something must be misaligned--let us know what nuCamp advises.

Bayliss

@MonicaNOCO, I'm guessing you already plan to do it, but it would be a good idea to have the tire checked as well.  Even if it appears to be minimal wear, the rubbing may have weakened the integrity of the sidewall.  Hopefully, there will be an easy fix for the alignment of the axle, assuming that is the issue.

Just out of curiosity, did the rubbing of the tire clear off that entire area in black inside the wheel well, or was that from you wiping off that area so you would have a clean surface for the duct tape?  I only ask, because the wear on the tire appears to only be about as wide as the area it damaged.

MonicaNOCO

Baylis - yes I will definitely have the tire inspected when I get home.  The damage on the wheel well is approx an inch wide (arc) that corresponds to the wear on the tire.  

MonicaNOCO

Baylis - are you talking about the cleaned area in the photo with the duck tape?  Yeah - that was washed for taping. 

MonicaNOCO

A nucamp customer service rep responded promptly this morning - but only to say they have never heard of this problem and to take the trailer into a dealer. 

Bayliss

Thank you for responding to my question, @MonicaNOCO.  Again, I hope all goes well for you in getting it fixed.  I am looking forward to hearing what the cause was, so I can keep an eye out for it in the future.  We are all in this experience (i.e., T@bbing) together, and this forum provides a great opportunity to be proactive and learn about issues before they become a major headache.  On a positive note, Mother Nature (the rain) did you a favor, because you may not have otherwise discovered the issue until something worse happened, like a blown tire, or worse.

falcon1970

@MonicaNOCO
I'm really curious about this situation.
The torsion axle is welded to a bracket which is then bolted to the trailer frame rails.  On my TAB400 there is approximately 1.5 inches of clearance between the inside of the tire and the outside of the wheel well liner.  One way the tire could be rubbing on the liner is if the axle had shifted to one side somehow.  To do that the frame would have to be bent.  I think it would take a pretty hard whack directly on the side of the trailer to have bent the frame rails and if that happened there should be some other evidence of that hit.
How much clearance between the wheel and the liner is there on the other side?  Do you see any evidence of a bent frame?  If so, both sides would be bent the same amount.
Oh! One other thought:  Are the wheels the same on both sides?  If a previous owner had replaced a wheel for some reason he/she might have not used a wheel with the correct offset.  If they mounted a wheel with a positive offset that would mount the wheel closer to the inside of the vehicle.  On the 2019 TAB400--and probably all other TABs as well--the wheels have a zero offset.  That means the back face of the wheel (the part that is flush to the brake drum) is directly on the centerline of the wheel.  A positive offset would mean the back face is somewhere along the outer half of the wheel--and thus the wheel sits farther inboard.
You could ask Discount Tire to measure the offset of the affected wheel.  Unless they have to pull the wheel they will probably do this for free.
Please let us know what you eventually find out.

MonicaNOCO

Bayliss, tell me about it!  I picked up the trailer in Helena, drove 4 hours to my sisters summer campsite.  Largely because I told her hooking up and moving would be good practice for me ( as a brand new camper owner)... we decided to go to Missoula for the night.  2 hours down, 2 hours back.  If it hadn’t been raining... DURING that drive back, never would have known - before my 12-14 hour drive back to Colorado...! 

MonicaNOCO

Falcon1979 - you raise some great questions for me to ask my trailer inspector when I get home.   No, there is no sign of any such damage to the frame.  The sellers said they were the only owner, and I believed they were up front with me. 

I know nothing about tire offsets — but’s that’s what we were thinking about when we put the spare tire on to see if it fit better.  It didn’t really, and my B-I-L suggested the regular tire would be better for the trip home.  We did notice that the type of tire was subtly different - but we don’t know the impact:

drivers side tire - something like 100 miles on this tire.  It s the one that rubbed - is a ST205/75D14.  

Passenger side is a ST205/75R14.  This was a brand new tire - they said had 0 miles on it... which suggests to me they had a tire shop for the tire and then they mounted on the trailer.  Doesn’t explain the difference of the tire spacing thought -  passenger side had 2” to spare, drivers side was rubbing....

what’s the D vs R?  It did kinda seem like the cross section of the tire was different, that the D version bulged wider are the tread edge than the R version which at least contributed some to the smaller gap? 

Bayliss

@MonicaNOCO, they designate the tire construction types.

"D" = tires that are built with criss-crossed plies and are commonly referred to as bias-constructed tires, or bias-ply.  They are less flexible and more prone to overheating.

"R" = radial tire construction, which is the industry standard for most tires.  Radial tires are what you want to use.

You should not mix radial tires with bias-ply tires, at least not for longer distance travel.  As a temporary fix (e.g., for a short trip to a repair facility) they will be OK, but the two tires track and wear differently.  I am not a tire expert, so ask your BIL to check me on this, but the "D" tire may stick out further on the sidewall and be creating your problem.  If the previous owner put the wrong tire on, maybe they (or the tire shop that put the tire on your trailer) should be footing the repair bill............

You should have your trailer axle and tires checked before you do any long distance travel.

falcon1970

@MonicaNOCO
Obviously something has happened if you have two different types of construction on two new tires.  I think you should get the tire issue resolved before you make a 12-14 trip with it.  @Bayliss is correct about the rolling characteristics of the different tires.  And I am a bit worried about a long drive with washers behind the lug nuts.  You might not be able to maintain proper torque on the lug nuts.  If you do have to drive home like that stop frequently to check the tightness of the lug nuts.
Is the spare a bias ply tire (D) or a radial ply (R) tire?  Since the trailer is a 2016 model it sounds like they replaced weather-checked tires with new tires in order to sell it.  They probably bought two road tires (both bias ply) and mounted one on the road and the other as a spare.  The original spare went on the passenger side of the trailer and is a radial ply.  My guess is that they just didn't know the difference and the bias ply tires were cheaper.
In any case, the bias ply tires don't fit.  

MonicaNOCO

Thanks again for the info everyone..   Suffice it to say I made it home with no issues - and yes did check the lugs a couple times.  Hoping to get into the dealer tomorrow for inspection.  Sounds like I might be buying at least one new tire.  I can't recall at this time what the spare tire was, but will check tomorrow when I get the Tab out again.

falcon1970

Glad to hear you got home safely.

MonicaNOCO

Thank you to who ever edited the title of this post.  I've been trying to do that on my phone - but the edit controls don't work in that UI.

MonicaNOCO

FYI - called my local dealer -- provided from NuCamp support -- and they neither do axle work, nor deal with glycol draining...  So I'm going to my trailer guy to see what he says. 

MonicaNOCO

Hi all!  So just got my T@B back this morning with some answers...

Axel alignment - they confirmed on the lift what we could see by looking from the ground - the camper body was mounted about an inch from center, to the drivers side.  So while the axle is centered to the frame, the wheel well has less than an inch clearance from the brake drum on drivers side, while it’s over 2 inches on passenger side.  Spacers behind the drivers side tire is the only solution - though they replaced our washers (a good in-the-moment hack according to them), with actual tire spacers).   Only thing I can think of is that the sellers must have had spacers, and when they replaced that tire immediately before I bought it, someone removed them not knowing why they were there?? 

I ended up getting two new radial tires - because they must match by type, and it’s better to match by make and they couldn’t locate a match to the passenger tire.  Passenger tire is now my spare. 

As for the wheel well liner - we left the duck tape in place on both sides, and sprayed over both sides with flex seal.  So hopefully that remains waterproof. ( and here in CO it just doesn’t rain that much...)   

As for another post/discussion - they serviced the surge brakes and said they are in good shape!  So I’m feeling pretty well set up now - and headed out again Sunday!   Really appreciate all the feedback!  

falcon1970

@MonicaNOCO
So, just to see if I have this correctly, the axle is centered on the frame, but the cabin was mounted off center???  That is really weird.  sounds like a factory error--unless the previous owner did some really odd work on the rig.
Glad you have a safe solution though.

MonicaNOCO

Yes, that's correct falcon.  Quite Odd