Our Life: Lance Projects

Replacing the door panels in our refrigerator

We look at a number of travel trailers in our search for a new trailer. One thing a number of manufactures offered was wood grain panels for the refrigerator doors. It was a item I was aware of(who would miss Big Black door panels?) but didn't make an item of negotiation. We didn't even think to see if Lance offered wood panel inserts. So after we purchased our Lance I went to a local clearing house for surplus RV supply's (Walt's RV) and purchased a 4'x8' sheet of Cherry wood paneling ($11) and cut pieces to replace the black OEM panels. Here's a picture.

Here's what the doors look like from the factory.

Black is not always Beautiful!

: New Cherry door panels; These were fairly easy to install. The sheet on panelling I got was 4'x8'x1/8". The OEM panels are close to 1/4" thick, so we go some padded mailing envelops and cut the sides and taped them to the frig doors before we slide the new wood panels in place. It took more time to cut the panelling than to install them.

OEM RV lights with 1056 Blubs

I started looking at replacement LED's 2 or 3 years ago when we still had our motorhome. I purchased a couple different ones at RV shows we went to, but was never totally impressed with the way they mounted, the amount of light they put out or the cost. Then I started searching the Internet, I found;

Aurora Lighting has a particular LED light that I think is very good for the interior lighting in RV's, it a;

AU-G4LED/Aurora 10.jpg (8.91 KiB) Viewed 99 times

10 LED's, 8-30 volts, 2.2 watts, 160 lumens and 30,000 hrs life (3.4 years 24/7), they don't indicate the angle of refraction but it must be around 150 - 160 deg., Lumens (brightness) and the angle of refraction(the angle the light is spread) are perhaps the two most important things to consider when purchasing LED's. It's got to be bright enough and spread out enough to be a go substitute for the 1056 incandescent bulb's that come standard in RV light fixtures. Here are two pictures I took, one with the standard 1056 bulbs and the Aurora AU-G4Led/UN10LED lights;

1056 blubs

LED Lights

I think even with the somewhat poor quality of my cellphone camera you can see a marked improvement with the LEDs and they've past the wife test!

Now, the downside; Nothing is ever really easy is it, the Aurora AU-G4LED/UN10, DO NOT come with a base, just two wires sticking out. Aurora don't even sell them (yet) the blank 1056 bases. So you will have to order them through Super Bright LED or some other source, they go for $0.50 each. Now back to the good news; the last batch of AU-G4LED/UN1 I ordered were $11.60, not real cheap, but far less than the $25 - $45 that the replacement LED's sell for at Camping World or at the RV shows. I don't particularly like the LED's that require Double Stick Tape-it never stays STUCK!

The one's I made I used a single cooper wire ridged enough to support the LED's after soldering and if the wire is long enough you can twist the LED's a little to better direct the light.

Here are some samples;

My different LED lights

I didn't say much about the Ledlight.com, G4 Super Bright 14 L.E.D. Light, it is only 30 Lumens and has a very low angle of Refraction 110 deg. like a spot light or flash light, not good in a RV. The assembling of the LED's to the Bases, is below:

The assembly of 12 volt LED RV lights

Here is a picture demonstration on connecting LED light components to a 1056 base.

Here are the two basic components, the LED's and the 1056 base.

Here's all the parts and tools that will be needed.

Here's the base with the wire soldered in.

Here's the base with the other end ready to solder to the side as a ground. I leave the wire in one piece, because it's easier to control while soldering.

This is with both ends soldered.

Cutting the wire into the positive and negative sides.

The wires are tinned and ready to solder to the LED set.

Add a piece of Heat Shrink to protect the Positive leg of the assembly.

Add a big piece of Heat Shrink to protect the complete assembly.

And here's what it looks like in the Trailer.

In case anyone wants to put these together the LED set cost $12.60, the base $0.50, wire $0.10, and Heat Shrink $0.25 for a Total of $13.70.

Fixing the outside coax connection for DirecTV

We like to take our Direct Tv with us and we were told (by the dealership) our trailer had the proper coax for Direct Tv and we could use the outside coax connection point. On our first trip I setup our dish and connected the coax to the outside coax connection and tried hooked our Direct box to both coax connections in the cabinet behind the TV - nothing. I placed a call to the service dept at the dealership where we purchased our trailer and asked them which of the two connections on the inside panel is for the outside coax connected too. They thought the top one and I was told to make sure the amplifier was turned off and everything would work fine-WRONG! NO luck. So for the weekend I just ran the dish coax through a window.

After returning home I pulled the double coax plate off the wall to find the TOP connector had NOTHING connected too it on the back side. There are however three coax cables connected to the bottom outlet. As it turned out; 1. On the left, went to the antenna, 2. The middle one, to the outside connection and, 3. the one on the right, to the wall connection in the bedroom.

After much checking I discovered my dish WOULD NOT work with the outside coax hooked to the group connections, whether the amplifier was on or off.

Solution; Disconnect the outside coax from the group connection and connect it to the other unused connection-SUCCESS! Now we can watch TV without a coax running through a window! Hope this may be of some help to other Lance owners who enjoy Direct or Dish TV or the Lance Factory.

Adding a Reverse switch to our Fantastic Fan

The Fantastic Fan that came in the bedroom of our trailer is indeed a fantastic feature being it has a large quiet blade and comes with a thermostat control. But my DW who occasionally experiences her own personal heat waves wished it could work in reverse.

So it was project time. I had seem articles on a couple RV web site indicating how easy it is to add a (DPDT) Double Pole Double Throw switch.

Next the wiring diagram.

I wired the switch as in the illustration above. It helps if you attach wires to the switch before you begin to install it in the ceiling vent/fan. Be Sure you leave plenty of extra wire so you will have enough to reach each connection …much easier to cut a bit extra off than to add more on, although that can be done with a couple of butt splices if necessary. The DPDT toggle switch from Amazon has screw connectors. You can simply wrap the wires around the screws and tighten them down, but it might be neater if you use small round terminals on the ends of the red, black and blue wires in the illustration above (what color the wires are doesn't matter at all). I simply stripped a bit of insulation off the black and red wires where they crossed the terminals on the left end, wrapped the bare wire around the terminals, and screwed them down.

And here's a picture of the finished job. The DPDT switch is in the upper left corner. My wife LOVES it, and after all isn't that what it's all about?!?

Some minor modifications

On our first couple camping when it came time to empty the holding tanks I noticed a nasty little problem. Close to the hose connection and the valve handles there is a outrigger floor support and if you're not real careful you can get a nasty abrasion. Before our next trip I got about 4 inches of 3/8 inch fuel line and cut it into 2 inch lengths and then cut one side of the hose down the entire length. Then I got my handy dandy tube of Shoe Goo and squeezed a small amount into each hose and then slid then over the protruding outrigger flange. see below

Now when I dump the holding tanks I don't have to worry about the sharp edges by the valves.

Towel Rack

A convenient location for the paper towel holder in the kitchen of our Lance 2285. It's is mounted to the wall in the corner, out of the way, it's off the counter, it takes up very little room and best of all it's convenient.

Spice Rack

We moved the Spice Rack from right of the sink to the back wall between the sink and the stove. A lot more convenient for cooking and away from a potentially wet environment.

This is the cabinet over the sink/stove had no shelf, so with some of the paneling left over from the refrigerator doors fronts I cut a piece shelf and used 1" molding that matches to support the shelf around the edges and a couple cross braces.

This cabinet is over the couch and also had no shelf, so I did the same as in the kitchen cabinet, I cut a piece of paneling for the shelf and used 1" molding to support the shelf around the edges and a couple cross braces.

This is our medicine cabinet and it had wood trim around the mirror door and white plastic to the wall. Well I decided to wrap all the visible white plastic with some matching cherry wood trim, now it looks much better.

Window Shades

Robin and I finally completed a couple small modification to our 2285 this weekend. Last January on our annual trip to Quartzsite Az. we purchased two window shades for our doors and a shade for ceiling vent. I installed the shade for the vent right away because it fit perfect, however the door shades had to be narrowed to fit within the screen door, they were to wide. Well, we finished today and they fit very well and look pretty good.

New shade open.

This is a picture with the screen door closed to show how the blind fits between the door and the screen door.

This is a picture shows that the shade doesn't push the screen door out any further than normal.

The shade pulled down!

Here's our Fantastic Fan in the bedroom. The cover is rolled up in it housing at the far end of the vent. If you look in the upper left hand corner you will see the switch to reverse the fan.

This picture shows the vent with the shade pulled closing the light off.

Robin Handy work in the Bedroom

The project is all Robins. Shortly after we got our new Lance Travel Trailer Robin decide to redo the our bedroom by making a new Bed Spread, recovering the headboard and the curtains to match the bed spread.

Here's the bed spread and the head board

Here's a close up of the bed spread and the head board

Here's the new matching curtains.

Great job Robin!

Here's the rugs we got for the living room.

Here's another picture of the rugs we got

for the living room and kitchen.

Here's a Quilt Robin made and we used a curtain rod to mount it on the bathroom wall.

Adding a 120 volt outlet in the slide out dinette.

I don't know if any one else has experience a shortage of 120 volt outlets in their Lance slide out Dinette area or not. The Dinette is one of the few places if not the only place to sit when inside our trailer, and it's without power for your electronic gadgets . After a few trips my wife and I notice the only place to plug in 120 volt items was the bedroom, bathroom sink & kitchen, but nothing in the dinette area, so we were forced to run an extension cord from the kitchen over to the table to charge our cell phones or use/charge a Laptop, Kindle etc.

I had noticed the slide out has wiring for the overhead 12volt lights and if they can get the 12volt wires to move in and out why not with 120volt wires also. I got a flash light and checked and see were the 12volt wires were routed so they didn't get stretched or wound up in the gears when the room moved in and out. I noticed the wiring became visible under one of the dinette seats and then down the inside wall and under the slide out floor. Under the dinette floor the 12volt wire had an extra measure of wire for plenty of slack when the room is slides in and out. Then through a small soffit into the back side of the lower kitchen cabinets.

I felt that if I used STRANDED wire it would carry adequate voltage and still be flexible for the movement of the room. Next was to pick a place for the outlet, I picked the middle of the front panel of the dinette seat/outside storage compartment.Next where to tie into 120volts. I looked at the breaker box, but it was full, next I decided to look at the GFCI (under the edge of the kitchen counter between the sink and stove) so then I turned off the power and pulled the GFCI, out and found it still had room for one more connection.

I started out by installing a blue 'works box' (the one with the ear to hold it in place) in the front panel of the storage cabinet.

: Receptacle in Dinette area

: The back of the new box in the storage area.

I decided to run the 3 #14 stranded wires in a flexible conduit, which was secured in place with harness ties and screws, similar to what Lance uses. I ran from the works box along the inside of the storage cabinet to the seat cabinet (next to the bathroom)through a hole I drilled, then almost to the front and down through the floor through another hole I drilled to the area underneath the slide out where all the ducks and wiring is located.

Through dinette cabinet and down through floor. for the extra length of wire and adequate room for the wire to move when the room is going in and out.

Here's a picture of the wires under the dinette, I attached them to the underside to keep them from getting tangled with the heater ducks.

Here's another shot under the dinette to the left of the of the picture above, it shows a 1/4in elastic cord I used to hold the wires up off the floor and to control the wires when the dinette moves in and out.

Next I pulled the wires through a small wooded soffit between the dinette area and the lower kitchen cabinet

I chose this side of the dinette to give room

The wires between sink and front panel of cabinet.

Up the inside of the sink cabinet.

Then up the inside of the lower kitchen cabinet to the area between the sink and the front side of the cabinet (with other wires) and over to the GFCI outlet.

My wire going into the upper left corner of GFCI box.

I pulled the GFCI out as well as the works box it was in, so I could drill a hole in it for my wires. I secured my wires to the GFCI and reinstalled the works box and the GFCI, using care to fold the wires into the box. The bonus here is that my receptacle is protected by the GFCI also.

This project took the better part of a day, but I work slowly and I had to run back to the hardware store a few times for things I forgot! This may be to much for some to take on, but if you need an extra receptacle you can hire an electrician to add it.

Adding USB outlets

Here's the parts; two cigarette sockets, one works box and a blank cover plate.

Getting ready to drill the holes in the blank face plate.
(2 cigarette sockets $5 ea. at Camping World)

The two 7/8" holes drilled and the cigarette sockets installed.
(Works box, face plate and wire from Home Depot)

Here are the two Double USB plugs to go in the cigarette lighter sockets.
So the new plate can accept two plugs with cigarette ends or four USB cords.
($9.99 ea. at Fry's Electronics)

Here's the installation. I installed the plate with the two cigarette sockets/USB plugs next to the double 120 volt duplex receptacles, that I installed a years or so back. One of which I changed out with a combination USB and 120 volt receptacle. ($20)

I ran the #10 wires in the same conduit as the 120 volt wires, under the dinette and kitchen cupboards to the new Progressive Dynamic converter/charger I installed a few months back which has extra 12 volt connections., with a 15 amp fuse. Total cost $50.00 parts and wire. Project DONE!!!!!

We discovered this summer we need an outlet at the end of the couch for whatever or maybe a fan in the window on the back of the couch. A fairly easy installation.

Pet Kennel

Range cover fix!

Our Lance came with a Atwood 3 burner range and oven. During our delivery walk through we were cautioned and shown how the open and close the range cover so not to damage the hinges.Well after we got home we were checking everything out we discovered one of the hinges was broke! How did that happen? I contacted our dealers service department and they shipped us a replacement set. We were very careful for the next two years or so, but broke the very same side again (right). This time having heard others were having the same problem, I felt it was time for an improvement. The hinge parts on the cover and range are made of stainless steel. Stainless steel is a hard steel, but lacks tensile strength. The configuration use on the range and cover has a small rectangular tab on the range top and a rectangular slot on the range cover. The whole problem lies in the very fragile tab being flat and being just slightly smaller than the slot that it has to slide up and down on to open and close the cover. So if you don't lift the back of the cover straight up you will shear off the tab.

My fix calls for two small (1/8") stainless steel bolts, two nylon/stainless lock nut and a couple stainless washers. And of coarse you'll have to remove the remaining tab before completing the repair.

In this picture I have the new bolt, washer and nylon nut in place.

Here's a side view.

Here's the finished fix. The nylon lock nut will allow a loose fit so the parts will swivel. The cover still has to be lifted slightly before opening the cover. The original factory hinges would allow you to easily remove the cover altogether by pulling the cover corners out and sliding the cover off the stainless tabs. With my fix to remove the cover the small bolts must be unscrewed.

New Drawer for the under the Dinette Seat

Robin requested a drawer for under under one of the dinette seats.

So I started with some left over wood. The bottom is a piece Masonite that came off the refrigerator door. the sides are 1/8" Masonite from and old drawer project and the front and back pieces are leftover 1/2" x 4" cedar fence pieces and the front panel has a 1/8" piece of the cherry paneling leftover refacing the fridg.

The under seat cabinet to get the new drawer.

How the drawer will look in the cabinet.

Attaching the slides to the bottom of the drawer.

The drawer slides mated together.

And the drawer slides and closes!

What the slides look like screwed to the door.

Slides on the bottom of the drawer and in the cabinet.

Fill it up Dear!

And it slides closed!

DONE!

Quieting our Lance water pump

In our Lance 2285 the water pump is located under the fold down couch. It's a good water pump but like most RV water pumps it can be noisy. Lance mounted the pump on a 8"x 8"x 3/8" piece of plywood and then screwed that board to the plywood wheel well cover. A ridged mounted motor on plywood under the couch acted like megaphone and amplified the mechanical noise of the pump when in operation. I first tried putting large grommets between the pump and the plywood at each screw, that helped a little. Next was to find some form of isolation. Walking around my garage I found a 10" remnant piece of water pipe isolating foam, used out doors to help keep waterlines from freezing. I cut it in half and first slide a piece between the 8"x 8" plywood and the wheel well and the other piece between the pump and the 8"x 8" plywood.

If you look close behind the black portion of the water pump you can see the foam under the pump.

Here's you can see the foam between the 3/8" plywood and the wheel well cover.

Here's a short video of the water pump in operation. It should be noted there was NO water in the tank, but if there was it would have been even quieter! I short this video within 8" of the pump.

Quiet at Last!

More Drawers in the Kitchen!

The cabinet to the right of the sink in our 2285 is nice. Originally two shelves and a little shallow. The bottom shelf is open to the back and access to the outside shower and manual crank of the slide. In an effort to organize and better organize this area we thought some drawers might help.

The top shelf has enough room for two shallow drawers. The top for the toaster and the other tow for sandwich wrap, baggies and aluminium fold, etc.

The three drawers closed.

The three drawers Loaded and Organized!

With a small shelf on the bottom.

Here's the relocated monitoring panel and the new receptacle for the toaster.

How to get into the Monitor Panel.

First "Gentle" press the standard screw driver down on the tap on the top edge of the face plate.

The panel will then con forward and out of it's housing. There are 4 screws that hold the housing to the cabinet.

New Propane Tank Lock.

Very simple and easy to install.

Peace of mind for those that have to put their trailer in a storage lot.

New Stereo Housing

Here's the new enclosure I made to replace the Jensen Stereo that came with our trailer.

Below is a cubby I made to hold extra CD's.

The Sleep Number Bed installation

Where to locate the huge air pump for our new Sleep Number bed. I drilled two holes at the upper right corner of bed support housing as directed in the instructions that came with the bed.

I thought the holes I drilled would be into the pass through cabinet under the bed. However, they ended up in an area in front of the pass through cabinet, an area only accessible by a small round hole in the bulk head.

In an effort to gain additional access this area I decided to cut a larger access opening in the bulk head.

Here's the new opening and the Sleep Number pump with hoses connected.

Here's the shelf I made to mount the pump to.

Here's the shelf installed and a new 120 volt outlet I installed to plug the new pump into

Here's the piece bulk head I cut out with hinges to make it easier to access the pump.

Here's the finished project

Installation of a backup camera on our Lance Travel Trailer.

All the new motorhomes come with a Backup camera system and felt after installing a backup system the our Toyota Tundra, I started to think it would be very nice and helpful to have a backup camera on our Lance also.

I picked a spot in the middle of the trailer, high enough to still be under the kitchen counter.

Of course that ended up behind the oven! So I pulled the oven (not a big deal, 6 screws and disconnecting the gas line. Then I discovered the area where the oven is installed is bulk headed from the back wall of the trailer, so I removed them! In this picture you can see the hole I drilled and the video cable run in through it.

This picture is the floor below the oven compartment were Lance brought a large bundle of wires and the LP gas line into the back of the trailer. The 120 volt converter is this side of silver heater ducts.

Here's a view of the the hole in the floor from under the back of the trailer where my wires came out of. I filled the hole with silicon sealant, which Lance failed to do!

This picture is under the trailer at the drivers side rear corner were I tied into the trailers 'Backup Light' wiring and ran my video cable along with the trailer bundle of wired to the front corner of the trailer.

Here's a picture inside the drivers side end of the pass through cabinet were I mounted the wireless transmitter. I ran the video cable along the inside of the frame along with the Lance cables and drilled a hole into the bulk head area in front of the pass through. There another 4" access hole to this area at the bottom of the pass through. I mounted it at the top, hopefully out of harms way!

The ' Camera'

Here's the view behind our trailer from the monitor in our truck. This monitor is mounted to the back side of the drivers side sun visor.

Here's a fun picture taken the same time as the one just above, but this one is from the rear view mirror/monitor of our truck through the trucks backup camera looking, approximately 50 feet, across the driveway at our Lance! Bottom line the wireless feature of this backup camera system is pretty darn good!

Replacing our WFCO converter/charger with a

Progressive Dynamic 4045

Well, here's the new Progressive Dynamic 4045 converter/charger to replace our WFCO that hasn't been keeping our batteries up on our last two dry camping trips.

I pulled the range out so I would have better access to all the wires involved in the change out.

The old WFCO is out! I marked all the wires so I have some idea were to hook them back up.

Well, the new PD 4045 fits almost perfect. Had to make a little notch on the left side for a little 1/2" x 1/8" protrusion on the side of the new unit. Otherwise the PD 4045 fits in the same opening as the old WFCO.

There it is all wired up and the new breakers in. Room for one additional duplex breaker so I put some circuits that were parallel in the old unit on their own breaker.

All in and ready for the cover.

Got the new unit screwed in to the wall and labeled all the Fuses and Breakers, which Lance failed to do!!!

Finished

Bathroom Fan Switch Relocation

How many time have you gone to the bathroom, to taking care of business and realize you forgot to turn on the exhaust fan? Or your have kids you or they have to stand on the toilet to turn the fan. You know that little black button in the corner of the bathroom vent! The one that's about 4.5 feet above the toilet or about 2 feet out of your reach when all situated on the throne!

Well, how about adding a fan switch down at eye level while sitting on the toilet?

Very simple project; $12 switch from Camping World, 5 ft of speaker wire $1.50, a 3"x 4" x 1/2" block of wood and 4 ft of cove molding at $2 and a couple hours work.

Momma's Happy and the rest of the family will be too, you go to take care of Business!

Bathroom Toilet Replacement

Well it took a while for it to dawn on us why our friends and the new Lance were coming with china bowl toilets. After some 30 year of RVing with a variety toilets the one that came in our 2010 2285 was a Aqua Magic V with the flush handle at the rear corner just under the seat. It was a little short and one of the first we'd had in a long time that we had to lean over to flush and say 'Bye-Bye' as the toilet flushes. The other Revelation we learned is that china bowls are SELF CLEANING!!!!

Here the Dometic Toilet in the shipping box!

Here the new toilet out of the box!!!!

Here the New and the Old! The new Dometic is only a 1 inch taller,

but the bowl area is much larger!

Here it is all installed. Didn't take to long I used the small black strip on rubber along the front lip down on the floor. The toilet had a little tendency to rock a little bit, but this extra rubber stopped all that. None of the pictures show the water line. On the Aqua Magic the water line connected at the top and of course the connection of the new one was a the bottom. So I went through my PVC fitting and found that a 1/2 inch 90 * threaded elbow and 4 inch sprinkler riser pipe and 1/2 inch male/female threaded elbow and some Teflon tape and presto it PLUMBING!!!

Finish Project just waiting for our next trip of Christening!!!

New sew hose holder

With a Lance 2285 there are two (2) holding tank drain locations. One in the front 1/3 of the trailer and one in the back for the kitchen. I know from many years of RVing, that there is no standard location in an RV Park for the placement of the sewer hook-up. Some in the middle, some way in the back. What this means to me, is that I either needed one super long hose or two or three shorter hoses. The hose the dealer gave us was a 10 feeter, NOT ENOUGH, you end up having to move the trailer forwards and back to empty all tanks-PITA!

The sewer hose compartment in our trailer, which is a very early model, is only big enough for the original 10 ft hose. So the next 10 ft hose would end up in the storage compartment under the dinette (outside access). Not a big sanitation problem, because I clean my hoses really good, but more so, another bulky item in a compartment with electric cord, water hoses, barbecue, satellite dish and other misc stuff!

So after a couple years of thought, I went shopping at Home Depot with my third new sewer hose for a pipe large enough to hold the hose with quick connects already on them. All the 4" PVC pipes just weren't large enough and I didn't want to special order the next size up 6", because a special order is VERY expensive plus the minimum length would be 20 ft, or 12 ft of extra cost and/or a bigger waste.

I'm not sure who thought of it first; me or my wife, but we went to the fence section and low and behold a 5" PVC fence post, a little under 8 ft long, it would worked fine! I had installed the PVC cross over hangers (as a previous mod.) to support my push up flag pole and a extendible pole for wind socks. I had to lower it just a smig, but otherwise the fence post fit fine and two sewer hoses hooked together slide in with a little room to spare!

Slide out support

My wife helps guide me when we move our Lance up and down our driveway. She had noted on one of our recent manurers down our drive that the top portion of our slide out, tilts out as I moved the trailer up and down our property. Unfortunately due the significant difference in elevation of our property above the street we have to manurer the trailer back and forth across the driveway to get it up and down the hill. Doing this means at times the trailer tilts quite a bit on the side with the slide. Which means a lot of the weight of the slide is transferred to the the low side.

I know the newer slide mechanisms that Lance uses are prone to failure and if this happens on a trip they recommend you have some 2"x 4" blocking to hold the slide in while transporting for repairs. Well, we have the earlier slide mechanism, a Happijac. Let's less prone to failure and it has a hand crane if the electric motor fails for some reason. To me the weak component in our setup is the composite floor of the trailer. The slide hardware is bolted to it. There is a lot of torquing to the floor when the slide is moving the room in and out. Due to this torquing of the floor, I feeling the floor will only be good for a certain amount of flexing and may cause premature failure of the floor. I thought it could only help to give all the slide components, including the floor, a little extra support.

So I made up two braces to slide on top of the slide for uses while travelling, for a little insurance!!

New Hepvo valves added to kitchen and bathroom sinks.

A couple years back on LOA a member posted a write up on replacing the P Traps under the kitchen and bathroom sinks with Hepro valves. The take up less room under and utilize a totally different approch. They have been used in Europe for sometime. On our two week vacation this year at times we could smell the holding tank odors from time to time, so I thought is might be a good time to install them in our Lance.

This was picture to help me when I went to the hardware store for the

additional pipes I need to finish the hook up.

There's another picture to help me when I went to the hardware store for the additional

pipes I need to finish the hook up.

Here's the kitchen Hepvo valve and plumbing all connected .

I actually replaced the short pipe between the two elbows with a longer one, just to be

safe, but didn't take a new picture.

Here's the completed job under the bathroom sink, much more room.

Here's the pipe I took out under the kitchen sink. I know

I should have take a picture before I cut it out.

Replacing our rear bumper and added a 4"x 4" for a sewer hose and adding a receiver for a bicycle rack.

Here's the old rear bumper, I had it off before I thought of a picture!

Here's the new 4"x 4" tube bumper with the rack receiver already welded on.

Here's another view which also shows the mounting brackets welded on.

Here's the new bumper bolted on to the trailer frame

Here's a view from the back.

Here's a picture with the bicycle rack installed in the receiver.

Here's a video of me jumping on part of the bike rack to see how much the bumper and/or frame rail ends flex. Not to bad, considering I weigh much more then our two bicycles.

UPDATE:

I wasn't pleased with how far the bicycle rack stuck out so I modified it's lower mount.

I purchased some 2" sq steel the same size as the original curved section and welded a much shorter elbow which reduced the rear projection some 8".

As I think you can see the distance the rack sticks out the back is much less and this further reduces the torquing on the bumper.

Here's the finished product. I saved the original parts incase I decided to sell the bicycle rack at some future date.

Adding bathroom Light and Water Pump Switches

After 4 year in our Lance we decided we needed an additional our water pump switch in our bathroom, so we don't have to walk to the kitchen and back to turn the pump on. Also we had been thinking it would be nice to have a wall switch for the overhead light.

I went to Camping World and purchased a double rocker wall switch.

I started by unscrewing the overhead bathroom light fixture, then I cut the black wire to the light (12+) and pulled two black wires to the closet from the bathroom ceiling to a small hole I drilled

I cut a small hole in the closet wall to mount the switch to. I ran the 12 volt from the light to both switches (light & pump).

I connected the return wire for the light. Then I ran a wire from the pump switch through the closet and under the couch to the pump.I hope this isn't to confusing. Now there is peace in our in the bathroom

in the ceiling in the closet to pull the wires out of.

UPDATE:

After installing the double wall switches, I decided to change out the Water Pump rocker switch with an internally illuminated one.

This will help remind us when it's on.

Nice!!!

Adding a Light Wall Switch for our Bedroom.

After the success of the bathroom wall switch install I thought it would be nice to have a wall light switch for the overhead lights in our bedroom. (Our last motor home had a wall switch for the bedroom light and after 22 year we found ourselves reaching for the wall switch when we entered our Lance bedroom.) So I picked up a single rocker wall switch and cover. As with the bathroom install, I started by removing the overhead light fixture.

I should note at this point, this mod has a MUCH degree of difficulty than the bathroom install. There are couple of big differences; first the bedroom wall is common with the bathroom wall and it's only a single 3/8" Liteply board. Which means I will have exposed wires in the bathroom and a hole in the wall for the switch will have to the back side covered. The second obstacle is the location of aluminum ribbing in the ceiling. To determine if I could pull wires from the light fixture to the bathroom, I pushed a fish rod from the light fixture ceiling hole toward the bathroom. At the exact top of the common bathroom wall there is an aluminum ribb, to secure the wall to. At this point I made a personal decision (based on my engineering training) that drilling a 1/4" hole in the aluminum tube would not compromise the structural strength of the ceiling. I drilled a small hole in the inside corner of the bathroom and through the aluminum tube. Pulled the wires (I used speaker wire, because it's smaller and the two LED lights in the bedroom have very low current draw). The wire were small enough I could squeeze them into a seam in the corner of the bathroom and I covered them with acrylic caulk.

Next I cut the hole in the wall for the switch.

Then I soldered the wires to the switch and mounted it to the wall.

As noted above, I covered wires with acrylic caulk. I has a small piece of luan that matches the inside bathroom wall and used it to cover the back of the switch in the bathroom.

Another mod completed!!

Adding a Light to a Lance closet.

After completing the light switch in the bath area my DW said it would be nice to have a light in the closet that turns on when the door is opened. This is another feature our prior motorhome had and again after 22 years you get used to those subtle little amenities.

Here's the light fixture we used. It is specifically for closet lighting. We purchased it a Arrow Trailer Supply in Ontario, CA. It cost about $16.

(http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-12...d1acd6a4&vxp=mtr)

I utilized the wiring I pulled for the earlier bathroom light switch.

Here's the light fixture mounted on the edge of the closet door opening with the light on!

Here's the finished installation. Took about 30 minute, because the wiring was already in and close.

Here's a short video to show how well the light lights up our closet.

<https://www.dropbox.com/s/nb1q...0427_113937.mp4?dl=0>

Upgraded my TPMS

About 4 years back after a rash friends with TT tire failures with catastrophic results, I decided it might be a good time to purchase a TPMS (tire pressure monitoring system). I did a fair amount of research I decided to purchase a Hopkins TPMS from Camping World. $200+.

Was a little tricky to setup and seemed like it took a really long time to read all the tire sensors. I called Hopkins tech support and they said they would send a signal amplifier. I connected it to the cigarette lighter socket behind to TV in the TT before each trip and things seemed to work better.

As the years and trips went by the Hopkins system seemed to work fairly well. Had maybe had 3-5 false alarms.The biggest complaint I had with the Hopkins system, was the laborious method to initial setup each wheel sensor on its appropriate tire. If after everything was setup you switched two sensors, say front to back on one side the monitor would read the pressure, but the reading would not coincide with the monitors display.

Well, late last year one tire was reading 200lbs and the rest appeared ok. I checked the tires with a good tire gauge and all pressures were within a pound of 50lbs. I try to keep them at. I tried everything I could to get an accurate reading from that the 200lb tire with no success. I called Hopkins and they said I probably needed new tire sensors, the batteries were at the end of their lives. One big drawback to the Hopkins TPMS is that you can NOT replace the batteries in their sensors and a check of the internet a pair of new sensors cost between $60-$80 for 2 sensors, so all 4 would have cost $120 to $160! Too much for me, so I started a new search for a replacement TPMS.

I found all the current standouts, Tireminder, TST, TireGard, etc. Then I saw a unit called Accutire, useable on travel trailers up to 40 ft. and very reasonable prices $80 for the monitor, tire sensors and spare batteries

Very compact, fits nicely in the cigarette lighter socket in the console of out Tundra. Tire sensor are marked for one specific tire location (RF, RB, LF & LB). All sensors come apart for easy battery replacement!

Well, I decided at the price, less than sensors for my Hopkins, to give Accutire a try! Ordered it, got it in a couple days and decided to see how hard they would be to setup. Each sensor ships with batteries with a little insulator to remove a time of installation. Pulled all insulators and installed them on their appropriate tire. As fast as I could screw them on the valve stems they started reading out pressures. The only setup was to establish the prefered pressure for each tire. The monitor reads out the actual tire pressure, the prefered pressure and the amount of deviation. After completing installation I pulled our Tundra back into the garage, some 40-50 ft from the trailer and the monitor was still reading all trailer tire pressures!! Not Bad!!

Have taken to trips now with the new Accutire and everything is working fine. The only aberration so far, is that certain tires gain more pressure while traveling than others!?! Increase is normal, road temperature and the heat generated by the tire dealing with the weight of the trailer dose increase tire pressure, but I would have assumed it would increase in all tires not just two.

A handy little Mod!

On a recent camping trip a friend showed me a handy sewer drain cap with a handle he had purchased and installed. He indicated it makes removal and replacement of the cap on our drains.

!Bt6mYdgCWk-$[KGrHqEOKjcEvcnF0ssRBL-D+6,86Q--_35

Ok, those who have followed my mods probably know I'm a little frugal! Well, I really liked the drain cap handle. I played with some different ideas of how to add a handle to my caps, so I wouldn't be getting rid of perfectly good caps for ones with handles! So while at Home Depot getting some stuff for our daughters trailer, I went thru the cabinet handle section and found 2-3" long stainless steel drawer pulls. The pictures below tell the store of my drain caps with handles for about $5.00 for two drain caps on our 2285

Here's my cap and the stainless steel hand.

Here's the cap, the handle and screws and the rubber gasket I removed so it wouldn't be damaged in the drilling of the cap.

Drilling the holes in the cap.

Drilling holes with the two screws installed,

The cap with the gasket glued back in.

Here's the finished mod! No more struggling to get the cap on and off!

Thanks Jnlret for the Inspiration!

A little Mod for my DW!

I don't know if the newer Atwood ovens or higher priced one came with an igniter for the oven or now, but our 2010 2285 did not and being that we aren't getting any younger it was time to stop getting down on our hands and knees to light our oven!! I know there are some who never use their RV ovens, but we do. So to make lighting our over easier it was time another mod!

I started by checking Atwood's website in the hopes of finding an igniter that they use that would make the retrofit a little easier. Finding none, it was on to the Internet.

This Mod isn't hard to do, but it got easier when I took the oven door off and pulled the oven burner tube out. The electrode location has to be right in the throat of the pilot pipe to work.
Here's some pictures of the Mod

Here the universal barbeque retro fit kit I found for $8.00 on Ebay.

Heres all the parts that came in the kit. You'll notice there are 2 electrodes, this was for a barbeque with a side burner, so I used the one with the longest wire.

Yes I had to drill a hole! I did first try using the Atwood Igniter, but the addition of just one more electrode weakened the spare too much. So I used the igniter that came in the kit,. which was my original plan. I used as discrete a location as I could.

Here's the igniter installed and it doesn't look out of place!?!

Here's the electrode mounted next to the Pilot light tube, I know it's may be a little had to see. I tried a couple different locations to get the best arc to light the pilot. I should note; I found with the very small flow of gas through the pilot tube, place of the electrode is very critical! I ended up with the electrode over the pilot tube about 1/8" to get a maximum arc. It lights the pilot almost first time every time, also pressing in on the pilot knob for 10 sec. so before pushing the button helps too!

If your oven came with an igniter this was boring, but if you want a nice little weekend Mod and a very convent Mod, go for it!

A long waited Mod for my DW!

For a long time my DW has complained about the difficulty in storing stuff under the crutch in our 2285. So like most of my mods I built her a drawer!!