Replacing our RV Slide Weather Stripping

Replacing RV Slide Weather Stripping

Well, we made it 7 months on the road and had quite a few adventures before we had any issues with leaking in the RV. Once we were back in Florida though and the rainstorms came in daily we started noticing a small drip in the living room slide. Our 5th wheel is a 2011 Keystone Cougar and we weren't sure if the weather stripping had ever been replaced (by the looks of things it hadn't). So we took on the task of replacing the RV weather stripping ourselves! Thankfully replacing the weather stripping on the RV was a good bit easier than replacing the RV ac, just required a little elbow grease and a few screws. Here is how it went:

Supplies for Replacing RV Weather Stripping

- Screwdriver

- Scissors 

- Primary Seal (check your camper model to see which primary seal will fit your unit)

- Secondary Seal (the smaller seal that goes on the slide itself)

- Paint Scraper (not needed, but makes the job a whole lot easier)

- RV Rubber Seal Conditioner (for maintaining seals)

We have a Keystone Cougar with 3 slides. We only needed one order of seal seal and still had a little bit left over, but we probably would have needed more if we had a fourth slide. Be sure to measure your slide lengths to insure you order enough seal for your RV model.

Taking Out the Old RV Weather Stripping 

This part of the job was fairly easy. There are only a two screws holding the weather stripping in place. Once you remove those you can actually rip the stripping out with just a little bit of a tug. Be sure to go slowly though so you don't accidentally damage the fiberglass with a big strong yank! 

Cutting and Attaching the New RV Weather Stripping 

We are super scientific around here and used a really complicated measuring system... and by that I mean I lined the old liner up with the new liner and cut the length to match. Babe wasn't super confident in my methodology, but don't worry it turned out just fine!

Once cut you simply push each seal into place: 

Primary Seal- this was the easier seal to replace. For our model it is just a matter of pushing upwards to get the seal around the bottom of the fiberglass siding. Then each side of the stripping had a screw to hold it into place.

Secondary Seal- this takes a bit more elbow grease! The slide itself has a tight notch that the weather stripping goes into. About halfway through the first slide we got a little smarter and grabbed a paint scrapper to help us wedge it in. Game changer!

And that was it! If the weather stripping on your RV needs replaced I definitely recommend doing it yourself if you are able. It took us maybe 3-4 hours total, was a fun project to tackle together and saved us a good chunk of change verses taking it to an RV repair shop. We got a can of RV Care Rubber Seal Conditioner to help us maintain the quality of the seals, especially being back in the Florida sun, and we use that about every 3rd time we put the slides back out.

We hope you found this helpful for replacing your RV slide weather stripping! 

Any questions, just let us know!

Check out more RV DIY in our Replacing an RV AC post

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