Keystone RV Repair in Yorba Linda

The frame is a Lippert steel ladder chassis with welded crossmembers and outriggers, carrying Dexter or Lippert axles with electric brakes. On fifth wheels the pin box and the upper deck framing are the highest stress area on the whole vehicle and the first place we look after any towing incident.

The walls split by line. Upper lines including Montana, Alpine, Avalanche and Cougar use vacuum bonded laminated sidewalls with fiberglass skin over composite substrate. Entry lines including Passport, Hideout and Springdale are more often aluminum framed with a fiberglass or aluminum skin over lauan on older units. Flooring on the current heavy lines uses a composite deck rather than plywood, which resists rot but hides moisture well enough that owners find the problem late.

Roofing is a single piece membrane, TPO on most current production, lapped and sealed at the front and rear terminations and around every penetration. The membrane itself rarely fails. The terminations always do eventually.

• Lippert steel ladder frame with welded crossmembers and outriggers
• Dexter and Lippert axles with electric drum brakes
• Lippert in wall and through frame slide systems
• Vacuum bonded laminated sidewalls on Montana, Alpine, Avalanche and Cougar
• Aluminum framed construction on Passport, Hideout and Springdale
• Single piece TPO membrane roof with sealed terminations

The full range, current and discontinued. Montana and Cougar carry most of the volume, with Raptor and Fuzion toy haulers close behind because toy haulers work their frames harder than anything else in the towable world.

Keystone also builds a travel trailer called the Sprinter, which has nothing to do with the Mercedes Sprinter van. If you own one, it is a towable and it is covered here.

• Luxury fifth wheels: Montana, Montana High Country, Alpine, Avalanche
• Mid range fifth wheels: Cougar, Laredo, Sprinter, Arcadia, Residence
• Travel trailers: Passport, Hideout, Bullet, Springdale, Outback, Premier
• Toy haulers: Raptor, Fuzion, Carbon, Impact, Fuzion Impact
• Destination trailers: Residence, Retreat, Sprinter Campfire

Front cap water intrusion on fifth wheels is the defining Keystone problem. The nose cap on a Montana or Cougar is a large moulded fiberglass part that meets the sidewall at a vertical seam and the upper deck at a horizontal one. Both joints flex constantly on the road and both are sealed rather than bonded structurally. Water entering there runs down inside the cap and into the front wall laminate, and the first symptom is usually a soft spot at the base of the front wall or a stain in the bedroom.

In wall slide rail wear is the second recurring issue. The Lippert in wall system drives the room on toothed rails at each side, and if the room runs out of sync even slightly the loaded rail wears faster than the other. That progressive wear shows as a room that seals at one corner and not the other, and it gets worse every cycle until the mechanism is serviced.

The third is frame related. Toy hauler frames carry a concentrated rear load a long way behind the axles, and crossmember cracking and rear frame sag are common on Raptor and Fuzion units that have carried heavy toys for years. On any Keystone fifth wheel, pin box and upper deck framing damage after a hard hitch event or a jackknife is measurable and should be measured rather than eyeballed.

• Front cap vertical and horizontal seam water intrusion on fifth wheels
• Soft spot at the base of the front wall behind the cap seam
• Lippert in wall slide rail and drive gear wear from out of sync operation
• Roof membrane termination failure at front and rear caps
• Crossmember cracking and rear frame sag on Raptor and Fuzion toy haulers
• Pin box and upper deck framing damage after jackknife or hard hitch events
• Delamination spreading from the exterior kitchen and storage door cut edges

The mechanical side is good news. Frames, slide mechanisms, axles and brakes are Lippert and Dexter parts that remain available for a long time regardless of model year, and they are shared across the whole industry. If your Montana needs a slide rail or an axle, that part exists.

The body side is worse. Keystone nose caps and one piece skirt panels are model and year specific moulded parts, and availability drops off sharply once a line has been out of production for a few years. Colour matched gelcoat on an older cap is effectively unobtainable in any case, which is why cap work almost always ends in a refinish.

We mould fiberglass cap sections in house and fabricate skirt panels and compartment doors here. On cost, camper and fifth wheel collision runs $750 to $50,000 and up at 5 to 250 hours. Water damage and delamination runs $750 to $18,000 and up at 5 to 80 hours. Slide out rebuild kits run $750 to $7,500 at 4 to 30 hours. Frame and structural work runs $750 to $20,000 and up at 5 to 80 hours.