Custom Fabrication for West Covina Owners

What we fabricate at the Yorba Linda shop

Custom fabrication at OCRV Center covers the metal work that no catalog part solves. That includes rear receiver bumpers built to a specific coach, spare tire swing outs, generator trays, roof racks and solar frames, ladder and awning reinforcement, storage bays cut into a sidewall, cargo shelving and tie down systems, toy hauler ramp hardware, and structural repair welding on trailer frames and outriggers.

The common thread is that the part gets measured on your vehicle rather than ordered from a picture. RV chassis vary widely even inside a single model year, and a bumper drawing that fits one 36 foot gas coach will miss the mounting points on the next one by an inch and a half. That inch and a half is the difference between a part that bolts up and a part that gets forced into place and cracks a weld two seasons later.

All of this happens in the building at Yorba Linda. Fabrication needs a flat table, a chop saw, a press brake, welders set up for both steel and aluminum, and room to roll a 40 foot vehicle in next to the work. We do not offer mobile service, so the vehicle stays with us for the fit up and the install.

• Rear receiver bumpers, cargo carriers, spare tire and generator mounts
• Roof racks, ladder racks, solar mounting frames and awning reinforcement
• Storage bays, slide trays, drawers and secure tool boxes
• Structural welding on trailer frames, tongues, outriggers and crossmembers
• One off modifications for toy haulers, work vans, food trucks and expedition builds
• Bracketry and mounting for equipment other shops installed with self tapping screws

Steel, aluminum or stainless: choosing the metal before choosing the design

Material choice is decided by load, by weight budget and by what the part is bolting to. Mild steel is strong, cheap, easy to weld and easy to repair later. It is the right answer for a receiver bumper that will carry a hitch load, a headache rack on a flatbed, or a trailer frame repair. Its only real drawback is that it must be coated properly or it will corrode, and a rusting bumper stains the paint under it.

Aluminum saves substantial weight, which matters more on an RV than most owners expect. Every pound added behind the rear axle of a Class A comes off your cargo capacity and changes how the coach handles crosswinds on the 91. Aluminum is the right choice for roof racks, solar frames, storage trays and anything that lives above the belt line. It is harder to weld well, it fatigues differently than steel, and it needs isolation where it contacts dissimilar metals.

Stainless shows up on parts that live in wet or dirty environments: step brackets, sewer bay hardware, water bay plumbing supports, and food truck equipment mounts where cleaning chemicals are part of daily life. It is the most expensive of the three and the slowest to fabricate, so we use it where corrosion is the actual failure mode rather than as a default upgrade.

• Mild steel: receiver bumpers, hitch structure, trailer frame repair, headache racks
• Aluminum: roof racks, solar frames, storage trays, anything above the belt line
• Stainless: wet bay hardware, step brackets, food service equipment mounting
• Dissimilar metal contact always gets isolated to prevent galvanic corrosion

Measuring, drawing and fit up before anything gets welded

A fabrication job starts with the vehicle on the floor and a tape measure, not with a sketch. Our fabrication lead pulls the existing part if there is one, locates the frame rails and every usable mounting point, checks for wiring, plumbing, LP lines and tank straps behind the area, and records the departure angle at the rear so a new bumper does not drag on a driveway apron.

Then comes a drawing. For simple parts that is a dimensioned sketch you approve before material is cut. For structural work it is a full layout showing gusset placement, weld locations and hardware sizes. Owners see the drawing first because changing a line on paper costs nothing and changing a welded assembly costs a day.

Fit up is the stage that separates a fabricated part from a fabricated part that fits. The assembly gets tacked together, carried to the vehicle, held in place, checked for clearance against the slide, the awning, the door swing and the tailpipe, then adjusted and re tacked. Only after it hangs correctly does it get fully welded out. Skipping fit up is why so many aftermarket brackets end up shimmed with washers.

Mounting hardware to an RV without tearing up the structure

The most common damage we repair from previous fabrication work is not a bad weld. It is a good part mounted to the wrong thing. RV sidewalls are thin laminate: a filon or fiberglass skin bonded to luan or azdel over aluminum framing with foam block between the studs. A ladder, a rack or a bike carrier bolted to that skin will eventually pull through, and it takes a piece of the wall with it.

Loads go into the frame or into the framing members, never into the panel. That means locating studs, adding backing plates on the inside face, using through bolts with load spreading washers rather than lag screws, and occasionally opening a small section of interior wall to install a proper backer and then closing it back up. On roof mounted work the loads go into the rafters, and every penetration gets sealed the same way the factory sealed the originals.

Chassis mounted work has its own rules. A receiver bumper welds or bolts to the frame rails or to extensions that tie back to the rails, not to the rear body structure. Cantilevered weight hanging off a rear cap is what cracks fiberglass at the corner radius. When an owner wants a heavy carrier behind a long rear overhang, we say what the math says about the rear axle before we build it.

• Backing plates and through bolts, never lag screws into laminate wall
• Roof loads carried by rafters, with every penetration sealed at install
• Hitch and carrier loads carried by the chassis frame, not by the rear cap
• Rear overhang and axle loading reviewed before a heavy carrier is built

Coating and corrosion protection on a fabricated part

A raw weld is a corrosion starting point. Heat drives the mill scale off, leaves the metal chemically active, and any moisture that sits in the joint goes to work immediately. So every steel part we build gets cleaned back to bright metal, treated, and coated before it goes on the vehicle. What coating depends on where the part lives and what it has to look like.

Powder coat is the most durable option for racks, bumpers, trays and brackets. It goes on thick, it resists chipping from road debris, and it holds up to ultraviolet load better than a spray applied enamel. Textured black is the standard because it hides fastener marks and gravel rash. The limitation is that powder needs the part to be fully assembled and clean before it goes in the oven, so hardware and hinges are installed afterward.

Spray applied bedliner texture is the choice for parts that take direct abuse: rock guards, step assemblies, cargo carrier decks, ramp hardware. When the part needs to match the vehicle, it goes through our paint department instead, gets primed and sealed and shot in the coach color, and gets clear over it. Aluminum parts get either anodized hardware, clear coat, or matched paint depending on the look you are after.

Fabrication requests West Covina owners bring us most

The single most common request is a rear bumper rebuild on a Class A or Class C where an owner hung a bike rack or a cargo box on a factory bumper that was never rated for it. Factory rear bumpers on many coaches are cosmetic or light duty. The cracks show up at the weld seams and at the mounting ears, and by the time an owner notices, the surrounding fiberglass usually needs attention too.

Second is solar and roof rack work. Owners who camp in the desert or dry camp at Big League Dreams tournaments and county fairgrounds want panel capacity, and they want the array mounted so it does not lift at 65 miles an hour and does not leak. That means a frame that ties into the rafters, standoffs that clear the AC shrouds and vents, and a wiring path with a proper gland rather than a hole and a bead of sealant.

Third is storage. Travel trailer and fifth wheel owners in South Hills and Woodside Village who store the rig at home want a place for a generator that does not live in the truck bed, a slide out tray so the pass through bay is actually usable, and tie downs that keep a hundred pounds of gear from migrating on the drive out to the 10. Work van owners want the same thing with locks on it.

What drives the cost of a custom build

Design time is real time. A part that has been built before on the same platform goes straight to material. A part that has never existed takes measuring, drawing, revision and a fit up cycle before the first full weld, and that engineering effort is the largest single variable in a custom quote. Owners who bring a reference photo and flexible dimensions almost always spend less than owners who bring a fixed design that has to be reverse engineered.

Material and finish are the next lever. Aluminum costs more per pound than steel and takes longer to weld cleanly. Stainless costs more than both. Powder coat is priced per part and per color. Matched paint costs more than textured black because it goes through the booth with color matching time attached.

Then there is what the install touches. A bolt on rack that mounts to existing points is a short job. A storage bay cut into a sidewall means cutting the skin, framing the opening, building and sealing a box, fitting a door, and refinishing the panel around it, which pulls in the body and paint departments. The price range on this page spans that entire distance, which is why an estimate written on the vehicle is the only number that means anything.

Getting a fabrication project scheduled from West Covina

OCRV Center is at Yorba Linda, not in West Covina. Plan on about 22 miles and 30 to 45 minutes. Most customers run the 10 or the 60 west to the 57 south, then the 91 east to Imperial Highway. When the 57 stacks up through Brea, Carbon Canyon Road across to the 71 is the local shortcut and it is comfortable in anything up to a long fifth wheel.

Bring the vehicle in during shop hours, Monday through Friday 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM or Saturday 9:30 AM to 3:00 PM. Bring photos of what you have in mind, any parts you already own, and a realistic list of what the part has to carry. The more specific the load, the better the design. A rack built for two road bikes is a different structure than a rack built for two electric bikes and a cooler.

For fabrication that ties into a repair we are already doing, say so at the estimate. Combining a bumper build with collision work on the same rear cap, or a solar frame with a roof membrane replacement, saves teardown time and produces a better finished result than doing them months apart. Call (949) 799-3387 to talk through a project and get on the fabrication schedule.