Awning bracket broke off...

[dudefire]

Hello, I have a funfinder x 160. The lower bracket for the awning broke free and the lag screws stripped the wood in the frame. I tried using a larger lag screw, a wood restorer and then plastic wood, but bolts won't bite, so I figure wood is rotten. My question is this: I want to approach this from underneath the trailer, but I can't get the screw holding the underbelly material to the frame to loosen (it's all rusty). I've tried everything. Can I just cut the underbelly material to access the frame and repair it from there? Or is it a big no-no to cut the material? I was going to repair it with gorilla tape or maybe a patch.

As for the brace, I was going to use a nut and bolt, or replace the wood if necessary. As a last resort, I'll just remove the awning and live without one.

thanks for any help

[whatme]

Had same thing happen on my old class C before I sold and brought 18FBS. I turned to the marine supply industry using a resin product recommended ROTFIX. First I enlarged hole slightly, then the hard part, reached in to bottom of hole with a very small tool and enlarged the back part of the hole so result was tapered to outside. Next is messy but I got it to work, using a syringe I filled hole with ROTFIX (it's runny) put bolt into bracket and put bracket on holding with tape meaning lag bolt was installed into the wet resin which would dry around it. Was messy but it worked. Used RV three more years without any problem before I sold it. Problem is if one needed to remove bracket in the future, good luck!

[twinster2]

Here is what I would do. Go to hobby lobby and get a 1 oz bottle of thin CA glue. Use it to saturate the rotted wood through the hole. Be generous and soak it good. While it is curing, shove a wood dowel covered with CA. Redrill the hole and put in the lag bolt.

[dudefire]

Thanks for the advice. I'll give it a go!