Caravan rails, clean up or replace?

[timhowarduk]

I'm tackling some jobs on the front of the van. Both the rail above the locker and the rail above the window need pulling off and resealing.
The slight dilemma is that a previous owner has given both of them a healthy coating of some grey stuff that has set hard, no doubt attempting to seal them without removing them. I don't recognise the substance! The inner seal (that covers the screws) is totally encased in this grey stuff.
So, choices seem to be to attempt to clean up these rails, or try and get hold of some replacements (which I'm failing to discover available anywhere online thus far). Any comments or words of wisdom?

 

[Gagakev]

Can you try and at least clean a small area with them in situ and see how they come up, you could experiment with the best way to actually bring them back to life. And if successful take them off carefully and clean and re-seal.

 

[timhowarduk]

Thanks for reply. They are coming off for a reseal whatever happens. I've realised the insert needs to come out whatever I do. So after some careful cutting into this stuff I was able to start to remove the end of the insert. I reckon that if I resign myself to replacing the insert I can get it looking ok. Might even just paint the rest of it.
The rail has started to come away from the caravan, and the gap had been filled with this grey stuff, so if I can clean all of this off and get the rail flush with the caravan body again I think it will look ok.
Need to figure out posting pictures!

 

[Gagakev]

Need to figure out posting pictures!

A few off us on here are using this 3rd party hosting site for the moment,
Postimages.org

 

[timhowarduk]

Pleased to say I got the locker rail cleaned up and resealed. The grey stuff came off with a bit of scraping. I cleaned up the surfaces with white spirit then meths and used some new timber behind and Soudal to get it all back together. It was a good practise for the window rail and probably the side rails eventually.