Outside Items
This page is dedicated to all the small stuff on the outside of your TM. It will contain all sorts of stuff to make your trailer experience better and maybe lower the hassle of the upkeep a bit.
I’ll start with a post I read on the Trailmanor Owners Forum titled “What Do You Use To Cover Your Pigtail?”. It’s a question about what people use to protect their trailer’s hookup wire that goes to the tail/stop lights, battery, brakes, etc…, from the elements when it is not in use.
I’m a curious one and so I get a kick out of reading these, but most of all I find them to be very rewarding and informative. I have learned a lot from the forum. The best $12 I ever spent. A total wealth of information that forum is!
So I read about all the different things that are used to protect the main wire to your TV’s plug and I liked the thread written by or fearless leader, Bill, the best. Here’s the link Bill gave… http://www.shoprvparts.com/product/1…onnection.html
So I looked and thought it to be the best offering and purchased one (image 20160416) off of ebay for a couple of buck less ($10.34..although the shipping was more than the item itself…go figure)
As you can see it really does do the best job by keeping your pigtail in an upright position inside a protective cup to keep out the rain and dirt and such (image 1772). It has a spring loaded door on the bottom of the cup to keep it clean when not in use, which also doubles as a catch latch to hold your wire in place when you are using it (image 1773). Very clever indeed! You just attach it to your frame with the tech screws provided (image 1774) and you will always have a home for you pigtail. Thanks Bill!
The next little item is about the entry door…the top half specifically. This was generated by a similar experience I had just like Craigrrr”s on the forum (“Door Flew Open”). It seems that plastic latch that holds the top half of the entry door closed when in transit broke on his TM and he didn’t discover it until sometime later. Those plastic turn latches are not very good and the older they get the worse they become. The older TM’s have three of them. One on the door and two on the steel diamond plate cover on the bumper compartment. They are supposed to have a thumb tab so you can turn it easily, but all of mine had broken off and the one on the door was constantly coming loose. So I went looking for something to replace them with that might be a bit better than the OEM offering and I found it on ebay once again. They were under the title: “Boat Marine RV Cabin Cabinet NYLON WINDSHIELD DOUBLE LATCH Set of 2 “ at
I bought two sets so I could do all three on my 3124KS and have an extra just in case. These are much better and look like they will last longer being made out of better material for the marine environment (image 1791).
I don’t know where I came across this, but in my reading adventures someone mentioned the word “riv-nuts”. Riv-nuts?…what the heck is that???…I never heard of such a thing, but as it turns out every TM owner should have this tool. It’s like a pop rivet, but it sets a threaded nut on the other side of whatever you are riveting together so you can screw in a machine screw. These work great for the aluminum skin of the TM. And instead of a sheet metal screw that will just strip out the aluminum sheeting, it presses a nut on the other side of the sheet metal. A zillion times stronger. For a #10 screw I used a ¼” drill bit which is a tiny bit smaller diameter than the riv-nut itself. You have to hammer the riv-nut into the hole, but you want a very snug fit so the riv-nut doesn’t turn in the hole. So this is what I did. I set a riv-nut in the hole where the sheet metal screw had screwed into and secured my black nylon turn latch with a #10 machine screw with a drop of Lock-Tite on the threads so it wouldn’t turn loose. I also had to make a very small spacer from a piece of brake line to offset the latch to the door level (image 1792). Now my door will stay shut and the latch should last a long time too. Thanks Craigrrr for the inspiration!
Another great little item is the Fast Way Zip. It’s a plastic coated coiled steel wire line for your trailer break away device (image 1799). I like it because it never drags on the ground like my old line tended to do. It’s very well made (in the USA!…fancy that) and easy and fast to use. The folks at Spillers Hitches here in Austin gave me this one, but you can find them on the web with out much looking.Check it out (images 1798, 1800, 1801, 20160420).