Have You Done Any Mods?

Originally posted by JandL Battery cutoff switch This is what I did to add a battery cutoff switch to my trailer. I used a 50 amp circuit breaker, panel mounted and switchable (Cooper Bussmann #285050P-121-S) and a Flange Mount Panel Gasket for the Circuit Breaker (#B156-7003-J). I ordered them from waytekwire.com. The battery box will fit a group 31; it was the largest I could find that would fit in the existing space (Atwood Marine 9084-1 Large Battery Box). I got it from amazon. I mounted the circuit breaker on the side of the battery box. The wire from the trailer is bolted to one side of the circuit breaker and I made up a short jumper wire that goes from the circuit breaker to the battery. The factory wire runs under the trailer to a factory installed auto reset breaker. I am not a fan of high amp auto reset breakers; if something happens that causes the breaker to trip I want it to stay off till I can find out why it tripped. I took the 2 wires bolted to the auto reset breaker and combined them on one stud, this took the auto reset breaker out of the circuit without having to remove it and was an easy way to splice the wires together. I also coated every exposed connection with Liquid Electrical Tape to insulate and protect the connections under the trailer. It’s available from Home Depot and comes in different colors and the lid has a brush attached. On the circuit breaker is a red button you can press that causes the breaker to open and a yellow reset lever drops down to show you it is off. To reset you push the yellow lever back up. I also removed where the white wire ground wire is attached to the frame and took a 3M sanding disk to remove the paint and reattached the ground wire. I also added 6 gauge jumper wires to tie all the factory ground points on the frame together. Steel is not as good of a conductor as copper is, and then coated the bolts with Liquid Electrical Tape. On the other side of the battery box is where I attached my solar controller for my solar panel (I will write that up in another post)

I did almost those exact same mods! Put in that same kind of breaker tho it's inside the box. Don't really need an external cutoff switch but now it's there if needed, plus now there's an actual protection device at the batteries, not 6 feet downstream.  Have two batteries. Were they wired for proper parallel balance? Of course not!  Cleaned up that mess of a wiring job underneath too.  Ours was just hanging down a good 8 inches waiting to be snagged on something on the road or even driveway, taking the brake wiring with it.  Great QC there.  Also repurposed that auto reset breaker to protect the 12V line to the tow vehicle (tho kept the brakes unfused as is factory, just whatever's in the truck protects that line). And it connects the 2 cables together until I run a bigger one. I'm going to relocate all that junk eventually. No need to expose any of that to the elements.  Yeah the grounded paint and multiple adjacent ground points were a bit of a head shaker too.  Not to mention all the extermely loose ground/negative wires on the busbar under the seat. One of the 6ga just fell out by touching it.  Ugh!  All solid now!

Does anybody have the 179 that they have done mods to?  Is there space under the banquette that can be converted to storage?  Need some place to store shoes so not always tripping over them.  Using baskets under bed for other storage.

We've done a number of mods where other folks have led the way.  Right now we are experimenting with the U-shaped dinette.  After strengthening the structure supporting the seats, cutting plywood down a bit and velcro-ing back cushions to the walls, we turned our attention to the back.  Since only I and my darling wife (just had 33rd anniversary of our First Date!) camp in our 179, we took off the back cushions and laid washtubs along the seat.  The relatively loose retaining cord keeps things in place but still permits some access to underseat storage.  We like the idea of living out of buckets!



We probably will put a small shelf with rails above the valences.

The tube is adjustable and about 6" in diameter. The part was screwed into the frame and a L bracket. This was available at the dealer.

We're new to the forum, but have been viewing it since we got our RP177 last fall. We've learned so much from the members here and have used many of the great modification ideas.

We made some foam backrests for the dinette. We can now sit sideways and lean back comfortably and watch a movie or read a book.