Delaminated floor

[Highwayman]

Can anyone help with ideas for a floor that has delaminated for the third time. Twice it has been repaired with resin injections but again it is flexing and making cracking noises.

[Brian Kirby]

My first suggestion, if you have not already done so, is to have a damp check carried out, and cross your fingers!  A resin repair, if properly executed, should permanently solve a simple delamination problem.  If it has failed twice after repair attempts, it seems likely there is now too much resin present within the laminations for proper bonding.  The original delamination should only have arisen as a result of bad quality control in glueing up the ply.  The first application of resin should have replaced the absent glue, and that should have been that.  A second application should only have been necessary to a different area.  If all these failures are to the same area of floor, it rather suggests the supports within the floor sandwich may be absent, or insufficient, allowing too much local flexing.  This may be because the floor wasn't properly constructed at the outset, or because damp has penetrated and rot taken over.  Hence the need for a damp check.

You don't say what is you van.  It may help to state this as others may have experienced a similar problem, or know if it is a weakness with a particular make/model and/or year.

[Highwayman]

Thanks Brian, The van is an Autohomes Highwayman, the first on the Peugeot Boxer Chassis. Purchased Dec 1994 but listed as a 95'. It was actually made by Elddis. Damp testing was one of the first things that I did an there was no problem.

Almost the whole floor is affected, only under seats is it OK. There seems to be a lack of suport, the area that you walk and stand on is only supported by the lontitudinal chassis members. Cross beams clear the floor by almost an inch.

[Brian Kirby]

Well, if it ain't damp it can't - logically - be rot, so it must be duff construction or duff ply.

Not easy to deal with, but I think you possible need to be able to observe whether the unsupported floor areas flex when walked upon.  If they don't, that would tend to point to poorly bonded (or possibly the wrong kind of bonding) ply.  If you can see flexing from underneath when the floor is walked on, I wonder if is possible to enhance the support of the floor from below. 

How feasible would it be to insert any material between the chassis cross members and the floor?  If feasible, and I've no real idea what to suggest, or how you'd fix it in place, that might be the best place to start.  Anything else you do from the top is liable to be defeated if the floor keeps flexing.  You need something that won't rot, is stable, won't react with any other materials, and is just the right thickness to be a tight fit without forcing the floor up.  I suppose some kind of plastic would be ideal, possibly a genuine marine plywood.  Screw to the floor from below with brass or s/s screws, just to stop it slipping out as the van flexes on the road, but don't expect the bottom skin of the floor (presumably ply) to be very thick!

If the ply flooring still gives trouble after the support is sorted out, I think you'll probably have to remove and replace the ply itself.  That would mean removing most of the furniture from the van floor, just to be able to gain working space.  I'm sure it's achievable with care: it'll be a real pain to do, and you'd have to replace the floor covering afterwards.  However, at least it should be fairly cheap - in every respect except time that is - if you can do it yourself !

Good luck.

[Highwayman]

Thanks Brian, you have confirmed my thoughts. Removing the furniture, I can handle but I may have to get assistance with the fridge because it is sited so low that I cannot even place a rug in front of it as the door will not open, raising the fridge could be done but the exhaust will be out of line so I may have to get a re-shaped on made up for me.

Thanks for your advice.

Regards

Dave

[Brambles]

Darn, I was 10 years out --- apologies. Deleted post

[Brambles]

Sorry about last post. Forget it, I was thinking 2004/5...Big OOPS!