Month: February 2017

 

Throughout the trailer – I saw two things. In some places, it seems great care was taken to seal penetrations in the floor and outer walls with either silicone caulk or expanding foam.  In other places, no attempt whatsoever was made to seal penetrations in the floor or outer walls.  No surprise, most of the unsealed holes were ones that were hidden behind covers.  For example in the front storage area under the bed – the front corners had extra pieces of paneling in the corners (taking up space) whose primary purpose seems to be to hide wires and unsealed holes through the storage area walls. Behind them was – empty space and wire exiting the storage bay into open space behind the front cap (open to critters on the bottom by the way) without any attempt to seal the holes.  Two inch holes will let a sizeable critter inside.  There was also a sizeable crack between the bed base and the back wall which went down into the storage area.  Can you imagine how many spiders could crawl up under the front cap, into the basement and follow the warm air right up to your mattress and pillow?  Hell, the crack was big enough that a scorpion could squeeze in.   In the back of the bay, a similar two-inch hole behind the water pump, down into the basement space, which would then allow said critter to go through the huge hole under the kitchen right into the kitchen cabinets.  How many other holes are there I have yet to find but that a mouse will have no trouble finding that I haven’t seen yet?  Building these trailers is all about hiding sloppy construction behind nice looking but terribly cheap materials.

I think RV manufacturers have access to the THINest plywood in the world.  Some cabinet faces that look nice (but you can see they are really vinyl over wood) are really made out of an amazing mix of crap.  I ended up working on a cabinet face in my daughters trailer that got wet near the bottom.  It was the full length cabinet by the main door that held all the electronics panels and some shelves.  The material (its not wood) under the vinyl soak up some water and puffed out.  We explored replacing part or all of the cabinet facing but it turned out to be a huge task and the parts sent to us by Forest River were for the WRONG YEAR trailer.  When I took it apart what I found was each board had two pieces of real wood (soft pine) in the middle and along one side.  The other two sides were sawdust – not presswood – saw dust.  And IF there was any glue holding it together it was water soluable.  Any moisture and it would swell up and fall apart.  Only the very thin vinyl covering held it all together.   In the end, we realized the bottom board that was waterlogged was exactly the same size as a metal home door kick plate.  We bought a brown one and installed it over the board.  Its now more durable, it won’t matter if a little more water gets into it and maybe some day, I’ll replace the whole cabinet face with REAL WOOD.

And the list goes on

There was Velcro holding the dinette seat cushions in place. Only the vecro didn’t stick to the vinyl-covered paneling.  So a three foot long piece of vecro had three screws put into it in a poor attempt to keep it in place. What is the name of the guy who designed that?  I bet his car mirror is duct taped to the side of his car door.  For the last 6 months.  I replaced this mess with three small pieces of velcro that matched those on the seat cushions and had to staple those in, as even the best velcro wouldn’t reliably stick to the vinyl.

A/C manufacturers design their units for start capacitors. They help the compressor start easier with less current.  But OEM A/C units don’t come with start capacitors.  You can buy one for $15 and install it in the space already prepared for it – but you won’t find one on most manufactured RV A/Cs. Why not?

So There is a hinge under the bed to allow access to storage. The board is hinged with two pieces of stiff plastic, screwed into the bed frame.  The sharp corners of the plastic hinges stuck up – and would over time tear the bottom of the mattress cover.   With just a dozen or so operations, the hinge material was showing clear signs of stress, meaning it would likely break with a few dozen more operations.  A 5 dollar piano hinge was used to replace the cheesy plastic and will certainly outlast the warranty.  Was this a Design Decision or did they run out of hinges and used whatever crap that was laying round?  My daughters Rockwood (built in SAME factory 2 months later) had a metal piano hinge.

Much of the trailer is assembled with glue and staples.  I wanted to install an Progressive Industries power system in the back left shelf where the A/C power enters the trailer.  I discovered it was built in place with staples and then the top glued in with silicone caulk. I ended up cutting out most of a panel, then installing a new piece of paneling over what was left.  There are other “empty” places in the trailer I’d like to use – but they simply cannot be gotten into without cutting out wood.  After I installed the EMS – it didn’t work.  Constantly cycled.  I tripple checked my work – then I took apart the outside AC socket – tightened the screws holding the wires, put it back together and it magically worked.  Someone was in too big a hurry to properly tighten the screws?

The cabinet under the TV in the front of the living space had two cabinet doors installed.  One had three hinges (2 one side, 1 the other.  Yes, you read that right!) and the second door had one hinge on one side and a long drywall screw partially driven in at 45 degree angle.  Behind these doors were a lot of water pipes, the sound system woofer and wiring, so doors makes more sense than permanent paneling.  BUT why not add $2 worth of latches, use the same 4 hinges and make these doors useful and operational and not ugly with a screw hanging out?  If you bought a $25,000 Ford truck and found a drywall screw holding in part of the dash – would that be acceptable?  There are many examples like this where an ugly shortcut was taken when doing it right was maybe 2 minutes more work and $2 worth of parts. DOZENS of times, salesmen lauded the nice hardwood cabinetry, yet somehow it is ok to partially drive a construction screw in at an odd angle into one of these nice doors.  I installed the 2 hinges on each door so they would open, plus two hidden latches, but no handles.  So I can open them if need be, yet they don’t invite kids to get in them.

Underneath the trailer – there is a plastic barrier – not unlike corrugated cardboard, but plastic.  This seals the “basement” of the trailer. Down the sides it is tucked into the trailer frame. On the ends, it is screwed to the frame with self-drilling screws.  In the middle of the trailer there are several support beams running side to side that also use screws.  But there are two of these beams where they used a masonary type nail.  This is the kind usually shot into concrete with a powder activated gun.  WHY? Why use a different method on what – 10 or 12 fasteners? If you need to take one of these out – it is a real pain – they don’t unscrew.  And you can’t put them back in – you have to find some self-drilling screws and put them back into the holes.  It wasn’t for accuracy, several of the fasteners barely lined up with the metal frame and the holes split out the side.

Up on the roof – I pulled the black and grey tank vents to install wasp screens – and found that one had been cut too short (improperly supported – so it dropped down out of the vent base, leaving a gap where water could enter the trailer. On the other, the pipe was so long that it butted tight against the top of the vent cover – almost completely sealing off the vent pipe.  These pipes drop down inside walls – so a leak would go unnoticed until the moisture started warping walls or flooring material, along with mold, mildew, etc.

The front door has a piston that holds it open – attached to a post that goes through the bottom of the door frame. It is lose. The hole is too big and the post isn’t tight.  And the whole arrangement has lots of play – so the door can swing back and forth in the breeze more than an inch – until of course its banging back and forth makes the whole arrangement get progressively looser.   I’ve bought a new post that mounts differently, but I’m sure over time I’ll have to replace the piston as well.  Its cheap junk – night and day difference between what RV companies use and what you’d find on your Chevy or Ford.

The plastic “door frame” between the living space and bathroom fell off.  It was glued on with something that stuck nicely to the wood but had no inclination whatsoever to stick to the door frame plastic.  I bought a box of small stainless screws that I’ve used to tack down a number of loose bits and pieces.

The stove fan vent door (outside) was entirely glued shut. Not just a little – it was as if someone didn’t know what it was and wanted to seal up the cracks good.  It took half an hour to scrape away enough of the sealant to allow the door to operate normally. This door latches shut – so it won’t flap in the wind when you are going down the road – but it is so high up that I can barely reach it and it totally out of reach for my wife.  Oh, and the trailer was supposed to be all LED lights – I had to replace the light in the stove hood as it was incandescent.

The bathroom door to the living space had a doorstop that was so long it was nearly impossible to pass through if the slide was in.  Remember we couldn’t use the back door when the slide was in.  I cut off more than half of the door stop.  Its a tight fit for us old folks, but we can at least make it.  The long door stop was actually there to keep the door knob from hitting the entertainment cabinet when the slide was out.  Chalk up another poor design decision by a trailer designer that most likely NEVER stood in one of these trailers.

Almost all the windows and dozens and dozens of locations on the outside walls, had the clear sealant on them.  Obviously the result of rushed manufacturing.  It didn’t really show up until some dirt collected plus the inch by inch attention of cleaning and waxing.

The trailer had four different keys. Totally un-necessary. Oh, and the storage locks are the SAME key as most EVERY OTHER TRAILER on the planet.  I ended up replacing all of the outside door locks (except shower), all keyed to a single key.

There was space between the door frames and wall approaching half an inch in places.  That gap went all the way out to the outside skin trim and along with the door latch, let cold air in.  I took off the trim they tried to use to cover it up, and the valances over the doors – put foam strips in the gap and reinstalled all the trim.  About 3 hours work all together.

My load distribution trailer hitch was installed improperly. The front of the trailer was more than 3 inches down from the back – and that was with the truck not fully loaded.  The hitch manual says no more than 1 ¼.  I had to change the height of the ball and tilt of the hitch to get close to the manufacturer specs.  I still need to weigh the trailer/truck combo to check the weight distribution.

My tires were all 7 pounds over max (measured cold, two weeks after picking up the trailer).

Every RV manufacturer puts these HUGE cloth-covered valances around the windows. They take up a lot of space, are cheaply built and provide very little utility. They seem to be there primarily to cover the shade mounts and “look pretty”.  Well in the bedroom – the closet door on the right side would only open about half way because of the position of that right side window valence. The only way to reach in, was to crawl up on the bed and run your right arm around the corner. I ended up removing that valance – taking it apart (literally 200 staples in each one) – cutting it down in half and re-assembling and installing it. It still fit over the shades fine and we could then open the close door more than ¾ of the way.   Next to the dinette – the lower part of the valance cut right across your arm space.  In general, the hard lower parts simply got in the way.  In the end, we took them all down, cut them down, removed the extra trim and lower parts, added velcro and reinstalled them.  We have curtains we “can” put up, but at this point, we don’t think they are needed either.  Ten pounds of crap, removed from the trailer.  Everyone could have saved $$ by simply not including them.

Speaking of shades…. The shades only operate correctly if there is some tension maintained on the strings. Ideally – they strings would be terminated directly beneath the shades – or failing that, 4-6 inches below the lowest point the shades reach. But they don’t .  The strings are screwed directly to the side of the trailer – so when you lower then the string no longer goes nearly straight down, but is forced outward toward the wall (because shade has to clear the window frame) and the tension increases as you go down.  This also has the effect that the tension goes down as the shade is moved up – sometimes leading to a shade that won’t stay up. And on long windows – the shades are so flimsy – they cannot be operated with one hand.  With a few adjustments, we are putting up with them, but I expect at the least, I’ll be changing the string attachment points.

And lastly – our tank sensors started giving false readings BEFORE we started using the grey and black tanks. I ended up ordering a much better tank sensor system.  The old one was nearly useless, but was built into the main control panel.   I bought a SeeLevel system, cut a whole in the main panel and mounted the new panel on top the main panel in the hole.  Works great and has battery voltage too.

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