Side wall re-assembly

Hello PC family and happy new year!

I removed the side wall where the van joins the PC structure because I had suspicion that a mouse or two had visited the PC over last winter.  It/they did.  I removed this side trim, corrected the issue, and am reassembling.  To my surprise, these heavy gauge, long staples were driven into the aluminum tubing in the wall.  Obviously I'm not going to be successful driving them all back in so I wanted to see if anyone else has successfully attacked this reassembly.  I'm thinking that I will need to tear apart the trim/vinyl assembly at the top and screw the 2x2 into the aluminum, and staple everything back together.  Anyway, I thought I'd collect any experiences here and later add my conclusion for any other owners who might find them in a similar situation down the road.

I can't imagine the psi it would take to drive those staples into the aluminum.   It does look like you will have to reverse engineer it.  It takes time, but sometimes it works out better/stronger that what the factory did.   Good luck and keep us informed.

I have not done a project on our unit like that, but I wonder if you may want to put a thin layer of some material between the wood and the aluminum to prevent you from having a squeak develop from the two pieces moving on each other.  Back MANY years ago when I finished off the inside of a panel van, it was suggested that I place pipe wrap fiberglass material on the ribs of the van before attaching paneling to prevent squeaks.  It worked very well.  It doesn't have to be very thick, just enough to keep the two pieces from coming in direct contact with each other.
I think your plan to reattach everything sounds like the only option available to reattach everything together.
Good luck with it and let us know how it goes.
Gary

They make what's called snap covers. You put your screw through the snap base. Some can be covered with matching material that you might find some extra on the back of any fabric covered item in your coach. The pics show one located above the coach door.

Cut them off and use liquid nail or other construction adhesive. Just clamp it in place for 24 hrs.

Or

Peel back the vinyl and use stainless steel screws.

Don

I'm curious as to if you figured out how mice got in there?

We did similar work. Re-fastened everything with self tapping screws right into the metal. We used the button caps to hide the screwheads as noted above.