My wife and I are new members to the Forum and have just purchased a new 2014 Montana High Country 5th wheel model 318. The unit didn't come with a BBQ Quick Disconnect (QD) so I thought I would share how I installed one in our unit.
I have installed QD's in previous 5th wheels but wanted to refine my approach in this unit. I wanted the QD to come out the curbside of the trailer and I didn't want it to exit at the bottom of the rig where it would be inconvenient to access and subject to road hazards and debris. After studying the propane system I decided to install the QD in the right hand propane bottle storage compartment. This install is nice because the QD is out of the weather, stays relatively clean, easy to access, and immune from road hazards.
The factory propane system takes gas from the right hand bottle, pre-regulates to 30PSI, and sends it through a 1/2" black pipe, through the front storage area, to the main regulator in the left hand bottle storage compartment. I realized I could easily run a second 1/2" pipe (72"/6ft pre-threaded pipe available at the big box home store was the perfect length) from the main regulator in the left side back to the new QD in the right hand side. I was able to use a pre-stamped hole in the left side compartment and used my hole saw to drill a matching hole in the inside wall of the right hand compartment. I used pipe clamps to mount the new pipe and grounded it to the frame as was done in the factory pipe run. In the center of the pipe run I used a pipe hangar to tie it into the hangar on the factory pipe.
In the Left hand compartment I disconnected the trailer feed line from the regulator output and inserted a 3/8" tee into the regulator output port. I then reconnected the trailer feed line into one side of the 3/8" tee and connected the other side of the tee to the new 1/2" pipe with an 18" whip that I had made up at our local propane supplier. The whip has a 3/8" male pipe thread on one end to fit into the 3/8"tee and a 3/8" female flare fitting to tie into a 3/8" male flare to 1/2" female pipe fitting on the other end which is connected to the new 1/2" QD delivery pipe. The flare fitting acts as a swivel to enable proper mating of the parts.
In the right hand compartment I installed the QD on to the end of the new pipe. Notice that I also installed a gas shut off valve to insure no gas leakage from the QD when not in use. All pipe joints were sealed with Rector Seal pipe dope and checked for leaks with a water-soap solution.
I've seen some very thorough posts on how to convert BBQ's to use on low pressure gas systems, so I won't go into that. But I did add a picture that shows that I also added a QD to the original BBQ regulator so that I could run the BBQ from a standard small green propane bottle if I wanted to.
This is my first post and I haven't learned how to wrap text around images so hopefully you can correlate my text to the thumbnails.
Cheers,
Jeff_S
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2014 Montana High Country 318
1999 Ford F250, 7.3L Diesel
Banks Exhaust Brake,Trans Command,Trans Lock
Superchips CORTEX tuner