Fender Skirts Cracking

[colan]

Most of us with units more than a few months old have cracks in the plastic fender skirts. Usually the crack is through a mounting screw hole.

I’m guessing the cracks are a result of stress from expansion and contraction as the skirts (plastic) and the mounting surface (metal) have different expansion rates. I’ve tried tightening the screws just until the screw contacts the plastic, with no long term success.

Has anyone found a good solution?

A couple that I’m considering for the next set of skirts are:

1. Drill slightly oversized holes in the plastic skirts to provide some expansion independent of the sheet metal.

2. Skip the screws and mount with 3M VHB tape.

[familytruckster4]

My experience over the years has been that the cracking is due to the skirt not being drilled out before the screws were installed. The drill point on the screw has to pierce both the skirt and the side of the trailer and doesnt allow for the proper amount of tension.

[TucsonJim]

Colan - Just saw a few cracked screw holes on my 2017. I'll be following this discussion.

Jim

[Lonestar]

I had major cracks at screw holes. Here is how I solved my problem:

https://gdrvowners.com/forum/exterio...el-well-skirts

Moderator Edit that link is broken, here is a new one:

https://gdrvowners.com/forum/exterio...el-well-skirts

[colan]

What I did for this installation, unfortunately it will be years before we know if this works, or months is it was a waste of time.

Screws are #8 with a thread diameter of .165 inches. Not knowing how much expansion/contraction clearance was necessary,’ on one side pre-drilled to 11/64 (.172”) or .007 clearance, on the other side pre drilled to 3/16 (.188”), .023” clearance.