Outback 277RL Mods - Moving Right Along

[Bob Landry]

Replaced the mouse-hole for the shore power cord with a Marinco square inlet/detachable shore power cord, simple enough as I had done that on a previous trailer. I ended up installing the EMS on the floor in the cabinet that sits between the rockers since that was the power cord storage anyway. I'm still trying to understand why Keystone didn't put he shore power inlet on the street side with the other utility connections. Maybe because of the two slide-outs.I installed it using two sets of locking plugs, so in the event of an EMS failure or I sell the trailer and want to keep the EMS, I can simply unplug it, replug the shore power plugs and carry on without interuption. When I replaced the plywood panel covering the opening I notched the corner where the EMS digital display is so all I have to do to see what the power situation is doing is to open the cabinet door. I didn't want it exposed so I would have to see it fladhing red characters all of the time.

Installed bug screens for the water heater and refrigerator vents. These were a home-brew. My local hardware store sells galvanized hardware cloth in 1/8" mesh for about $3 a yard. I cut it to fit the furnace vent and secured it in place with pop rivits. The strips in the refrigerator vent are secured by short pieces of small guage wirestuck up through the mesh and used like twisty-ties. I don't mind using the harware cloth for those since they aren't exposed and noone is going to see them unless they are looking for them. I did spring for the SS mesh screen cover for the furnace since that one is plainly visible and it needs to look nice. The hardware cloth was left over from doing the same thing on a previous trailer, so the net is, I've bug-proofed two trailers for $3. It doesn't get much better than that. I'll probably have to buy another piece to do the air conditioner vents.. No big deal, another $3.
On to the kitchen outlet. Not only did Keystone see fit to install only one 110V outlet in the kitchen, they put it under the cabinet so in order to use it for a coffee pot or whatever, you have a cord hanging down from the bottom of the overhead cabinet. What were they possibly thinking? Trip to Home Depot for romex, and an outlet. Finding a place to tie into the 110V was a bear. I didn't want to take the enclosure loose under the trailer to run wire, so I opted to tie into the outside outlet. That seems like a logical choice, since it's already protected by GFCI and that circuit gets little to no use. I pulled the outlet out of the wall an spliced the new romex into it. The outlet went back in with a small bead of white silicon and a wet finger, so it looks better than Keystone's installation. Since this is right behind the converter, there was already a hole in the wall with a large wiiring bundle going through it. So I went through there, into the water heater compartment, over to the furnace area and through a hole going behind a plywood panel that's under the kitchen sink. Then it goes over to the end of the kitchen cabinet next to the back door and walla.. DW has a usable outlet and I don't have a power strip laying behind the sink.

I still have to put in the handtowel rack and the toilet paper holder in the bathroom, but after all of this, that's a piece of cake. I have one more project.. (I think) And that is to get an aluminum diamond tread box to mount on the bumper to carry my air compressor, tool box, and wooden stablizer pads. All of this stuff is fairly heavy and along with being short on outside storage, I'm trying to keep my hitch weight down to a reasonable level.

I hope some of this gives you folks some useful ideas.