Category Archives: Airstream

More projects

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The quarantine still has us stuck at our son’s house so I might as well keep going on the projects. First up, a power outlet in my rear storage locker. We have a very large area under our bed at the rear of the trailer. However, there is only a 12v light in it. I have a battery-powered drill that I use a lot and it would be very handy to have a way to charge the batteries somewhere other than inside the trailer.

Luckily, directly above where I want the outlet happens to be the small ‘cubby’ next to my side of the bed. There is an outlet right there. In keeping what I did previously for our Dyson vacuum, I created an ‘extension outlet’. The extension will plug into the upper outlet and continue down to the storage area. You can see the bare ends of the ‘extension’ wire:

Behind a panel in the storage area.
Another view of where the outlet will be.

I took an appliance power cord and fed it into a wiremold electrical outlet box:

Testing the connection.
All connected and buttoned up.

Next project was a TPMS (Tire Pressure Monitoring System) and backup camera install. From Ford I purchased their trailer TPMS and backup camera system. It fully integrates with our truck’s existing TPMS and camera system. It requires running wires on/under/through your trailer to connect all the components.

The wiring portion for the TPMS receiver was easy. Ford told you to put it on the tongue but I was unsure about all the metal in the way and concerned about rocks whacking it. I placed on the underbelly just behind our sewer hose holder. You can see it here as a black box on the wiring harness:

Now, how to run the wire to the camera that goes above the rear window? The first thought was to go up by the hot water heater and around then inside of the trailer, through our bed cubbies and drill a hole above the window for the wiring. That gave me some trepidation.

The second thought was to go up through the belly pan and floor. Take it from there up behind the refrigerator to the vent on top and run the wire on the roof to the back. That was the plan. I drilled a hole (I really don’t like to put holes in the trailer!) in the belly pan and ran the wire through the floor:

Shows where the wire goes and one hole I tried but covered up
This where the wire will come up, by my solar wiring, under the dinette cushion

My son and I had to slide the refrigerator out about 1/2 way to gain access to the back to run the cable for the camera. While it was out we ran a cable for extending my LTE hotspot antennas. We also ran a pull wire for future use. Here is a shot up the back of the refrigerator with it pulled out:

Here is where the wires come out at the top of the refrigerator:

A picture of the camera in its location. I just used VHB tape to hold it there. I will post a shot of the view later when I get things more operational.

Next up is the really big project, but a bit of history first. Since our trailer is a Classic 31, the dinette was positioned further forward that a Classic 30. Here are original pictures from our trailer:

There was minimal legroom between the couch and the dinette so we removed that bench of the dinette. We purchased two ottomans that had storage to use for footrests and seats to use with the dinette. The next modification was to replace the front couch with recliners, documented here (you can also see the ottomans).

As we used the current setup, we realized that we rarely used the table for its’ normal function. I had always envisioned some type of other usage for the table with storage underneath. The next step was to remove the table and the other bench. This was the big project. Here is the initial start of the work (with the bench removed):

The blue line is outlining where the framing will start for a new table-topped storage will go. You can also see my camera cable coming up through the floor and then into the refrigerator cabinet (it is black).

The framing in various stages

A fun part of Airstreams are the curves. This cabinet was to fit up against the side curve of the trailer which wasn’t severe but it also wasn’t trivial. I remember in my high school geometry class you can find the area under a curve by making a series of rectangles that fit in there. I used a variation of that concept. I marked off, on the leg closest to the wall, a series of marks every inch. I called off the distance between the leg and the wall to Roxie, who recorded it. I then transferred these measurements to some cardboard to make a template:

  • Marks on the leg
  • Recorded distances to the wall
  • Three successive tries at the template (left one is the best)

Time to make the panels for all the walls. There will be two doors. One for the drawer slides on the curbside of the cabinet. The other door is for my electronics area on the streetside of the cabinet.

  • Notice the curve
  • Inside the lower electronics area, the source of 12v

Shortly after we got the trailer, the dinette table top started to split. We contacted the dealer and Airstream replaced the table. They didn’t want it back so I saved it and stored it, in anticipation of using it later. Like right now.

  • The underside of the original 4+ year old table
  • All manipulated and ready to attach to the cabinet
  • All stained and protected

We interrupt this project to do a repair! Isn’t that how it always goes? I noticed a bit of water dripping from where the shore water enters the trailer, it wasn’t much until the next day. It was a lot more. I turned off the water and started researching. I checked with Amazon and I could get a new water inlet the next day, so I did. The water input is on the underside of the streetside of the trailer. We are parked close to a fence (2-3′) so it was a tight repair, laying down most of the time.

I was able to remove the entire water service area by taking out (sometimes drilling out) 5 rusty screws. The whole unit then released making access to the back of the inlet much more manageable. I know that Airstream used PEX throughout the trailer and I was hoping the pipe did not fail. Instead it was the inlet that had failed, it was leaking right around the edge of the screwed on area. Put in the replacement and it was good to go!

  • The old leaky inlet
  • Inlet installed and all put back together (almost)

Back to the project. I wanted to put slide-out drawers in the cabinet on both levels to give us some much needed storage. I priced them from one company at around $150 each! I felt confident, after getting this far, to build my own. I purchased some wood for the drawers and got to building. I used ball bearing slides for the weight carrying capacity. Here they are, they are functional:

This table is the original one but we still have the old one. We were able to sell our dinette setup without the table. We do have plans for the current one. We build a counter top out of it:

  • Support leg down
  • Support leg up

But wait, I still have more table! Over by Roxie’s chair, there is a small counter that is on top of a small table (that we can’t use anymore) and I wanted to have the same:

  • Roxie’s side
  • My side, now

Since I was successful in using the ball-bearing slides, I thought I would tackle the drawer that failed in Montana last year. It turned out not too difficult but didn’t close completely straight. It appears that Airstream didn’t cut out an opening for the heater hose just right in the drawer frame. Fixing that helped a lot!

  • With the heater hose pinched
  • Pinching gone

I am still working on a few more projects and I will update those when done.

Two easy ones and a hard one

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As mentioned previously, the quarantine allows me to tackle a few projects in the trailer. There was one small planned one and one unplanned. In a previous blog post (Is the power on?) I showed how I added a power indicator that was easy to see from the streetside of the trailer. That project was done almost 7 years ago and the lamp I installed (neon) had burnt out long ago. This time I got a 120v LED indicator lamp. It required the hole to be a bit larger but it connected the same as the previous one:

The small, unplanned project also had to do with lighting on the exterior of the trailer. With my 2019 F350, the Daytime Running Lights (DRLs) also illuminate the running lights on the trailer, so they are on during the entire driving time. I noticed one of the teardrop running lights on the streetside of the trailer would blink, flicker and sometimes even be completely off.

Here is an example:

On
Almost on

I ordered a new lamp and started on it. There are two types of clips that hold the light to the base. Luckily ours had the easier clip, where you just needed a screwdriver to pry it off:

Now it is time to pull enough wire out to work on. Pull it very slowly and carefully.

A few minutes of twisting, tugging, cursing, cutting, crimping and attaching gives you this (taken at night):

This leads us to the hard one. In the evening, around the bathroom, we smelled an odd burning smell in passing. However two evenings later we smelled it again but very strong. We initially were unsure what it was. In thinking about it a bit, I realized it was electrical. The only electrical thing that was not 12v in the bathroom is the electric portion of the hot water heater. In our Airstream the hot water heater is under the left portion of the sink cabinet, right next to the toilet (great!), behind an access panel. I turned off the electric switch of the heater.

The next morning, I turned on the switch again. No smell but also no amperage was being drawn, meaning no power was going through the heating element. In researching further, I had heard of these being completely burnt out if there was no water in the tank and they were turned on. This was not true for us. However, we had spent some time in areas where a large buildup calcifies in the tank. I also read that people would hear a whine coming from their tanks prior to losing the element, this was happening with ours also. I ordered a heating element in anticipation.

I took off the access panel to assess things. There is a relay and wiring that covers the location of the heating element. I opened the panel and found a mess! Here is a picture:

In the photo above there should be another yellow wire nut in between the other two! These are the hot(black), neutral(white) and ground(green). The wire nut for neutral is gone! You can see the part of the wire between them. In the silver cylinder to the right is where the heading element is located. It has a nut to remove/install it, and two leads for the hot line. The thermostat signal comes in from the yellow line to actuate the relay which allows the hot line to send the 120v through the heating element. Another shot:

It could have been real bad!

First thing is to clean this up. The access is really tight but Airstream built another access to the heater. In the bedroom, on my side of the bed there is a little kick out that covers the rest of the hot water heater:

It definitely made it easier. I removed all the components, rewired everything I could, and waited to reinstall it. I had the element and thought I might as well replace it while I had everything open. It takes a 1 1/2″ socket but I could not make it budge. I also didn’t want to try so hard that I would break anything. I was pretty certain that the element still worked and the wiring was the fault. I decided to go ahead and hook everything back up the way it was but with newer wire connectors. I turned on the circuit and the switch. I heard the relay click, I checked the amperage draw at it was 14 amps on one leg of the power. Success!

I left everything unbuttoned for a day to ensure no leaks, no wiring issues since everyone knows that if you close up a project assuming there will be no problems, you will HAVE problems.

Here is a pic, of the new wiring layout:

And with it all closed up:

Almost two years ago I had problems with this hot water heater and had to replace a part. I didn’t document it then so I will now. Here is picture for reference:

This model of Atwood is an EXT model. That essentially means that they heat the water up to a higher temperature than normal and mix the outgoing hot water with cold to drop the temperature down to safe. This means you get more mileage from your 6 gallon hot water tank. Above is the plumbing that does this.

The cold water enters the water heater at the bottom, to the left of the valve. To the right of the valve is a cold water offshoot. This goes up to a mixer valve which take the hot water directly from the tank and mixes it with cold water and supplies the hot water pipe at the upper left. It is an interesting design.

What bit us was calcium buildup. The mixer got clogged and the hot water had very low pressure. I purchased another mixer and changed it out. It was just tough breaking it free, and having enough towels to get all the water.

I have a few more projects to go so there will be another post upcoming!