List Your Mods:

Good window mod.........

On the redirection mod for heater, what is the material coating the inside facing wood?

Originally posted by grand beaver ....I built an air deflector for the heater. From the front.

Okay. Be cautious about this. If you take the front off of the heater, you will see that the area on the lower-right is an air return. In fact, the whole area around the front of the heater is air return. By putting your box over it, you are restricting airflow so that the hot air output of the heater is pulled right back in. I think you will have problems unless you find a way to allow for cold air return.

What I did was to get a RoadPro RP8000 fan. I put a 12V outlet near the AC outlet, and plug the fan in there. I can also use 8 D-Cell batteries if I want to instead. This sets at the base of the bed blowing outward. It pulls the heat from under the bed and sends it out to the rest of the R-Pod. Since it is not blocking anything, it allows for cold air to return. It is small enough to sit there and not be a trip-hazard.

Thanks StephenH........I respect your opinion as I have read many of your mods and know you know the pods well. I will consider putting some kind of fan behind it. I didn't even consider the air intake for the heater! Our upcoming trip to Boise and The Sawtooths will all be in KOA's with full hookups so I can run a "cooling" fan to push the air around the heater....Thanks again for the input!

Moved post here after realizing this is the larger (primary?) of the 'mods' threads. 

We've been exploring and camping with our 171 for a couple months now and working on mods in between trips. There are a few of the more noteworthy mods we've finished to date.

#1 - Drivers side settee (electrical cabinet): moved dual battery setup from tongue to here, moved water pump to wall, added 30A transfer switch, 12v circuit breaker, 1000w inverter, ammeter shunt and 12v bus bars (not shown, on floor below circuit breaker). Area was already an absolute rats nest of inappropriate wiring from FR that I'll probably need to take apart and correct some day.


#2 Generator/LPG tongue tray - Fabbed up a system that better suites our needs. Tray is bolted to frame and offset to balance the weight better. LPG bottle holder is bolted to tray. Generator is bolted to tray (from underneath) and cable locked thru tray/generator/frame for maximum thief annoyance.






#3 - Info/charging panel(s) front of sink / side of settee: in front of the sink we added a voltmeter, 2 USB charging ports and a 12v accessory port. The switch was a last minute addition and turns the voltmeter on/off (so the light doesn't drive my other half crazy). To the side of the settee (sink side) we added an info panel (voltmeter, ammeter, watt meter, etc) and a remote switch to the inverter. I use this to see at a glance how much power the 12v system is pulling and find it indispensable in this regard. Holes were made with forstner bits (and a backing plate) and jig saw.






If anyone wants better/larger pictures or details of any of our mods I'm happy to share so just ask.

Originally posted by StephenH dbrimm, What kind of batteries are you using, wet flooded cell or AGM? If they are wet cell, how are you providing ventilation for the batteries to prevent hydrogen build-up and the accompanying risk of explosion?

They're Group 24 flooded cells and I don't take any particular precautions against hydrogen buildup other than providing regular ventilation to the Pod (in addition to it's comprehensive built in leakiness), keeping the batteries in good shape and limiting the charge rate so as to not overcharge/overheat them.

I've gotten very comfortable with the above after 20 years and hundreds of thousands of miles spent in watertight / nearly airtight enclosed spaces with these kinds of batteries and systems (merchant marine). As far as I'm concerned it's a non-issue in scenarios like this, at least as applies to me and mine.