- As I've stated many times before,
- 1) I can never leave my trailer as-is, following a trip...I must modify something
- 2) I'm always trying to make camping life easier/faster/better (i.e. cooking, packing-up, lighting... among others)
- 3) try out-of-the box ways to do things, not usually found on most trailers, and
- 4) use re-purposed items to accomplish those goals.
* Today, I installed side-mounted racks (load trays?) to carry excess items that I've found little or no room for inside my small 4x8 squareback, and instead have to sleep beside some, while most of it fills the passenger seat of my regular-cab pickup (items that I need to keep dry, and not in the open bed of my truck, since it always T-storms when I camp). I used stainless/zinc pantry-type shelves to make a folding tray to carry two semi-waterproof Plano 1719 storage boxes (pretty much the same as the 1819 model, but smaller, and I've carried one in the bed of my truck in all weather for years).
* The 30" long, 14" wide shelves are turned upside-down, and the 30" long x 15" wide boxes fit into them nicely (the boxes are tapered-down from the given measurements, for a good fit!). Bungee cords, cable locks, and a locking bracket (to hold the rack in folded-up position) will be added later.
- tapered-down from top to bottom, the 1719 fits into a "smaller" footprint than the nominal size listed would indicate
- box & rack dimensions, streetside (curbside identical).jpg (108.62 KiB) Viewed 771 times
streetside rack, with Plano 1719 box onboard
curbside rack without box, and in temporary folded-up position
* The other install I did today was to make an all-weather-usable GFCI outlet for my new camp cooking favorite item (a 25+ year-old West Bend electric skillet), and with a plug-in for my new removable/repositionable LED "porch light". Of course, it had to be a GFCI, and with an in-use cover, so I paired a GFCI with a regular outlet (making it a GFCI, also), and put them in a weatherproof Hubbell PVC 2-gang box (surface-mounted with stainless bolts & PL adhesive), with a Taymac 2-gang in-use (expandable) cover. I configured it to plug into my main ac source, a wall-mounted distribution block powered from either a park pedestal, or my onboard generator.
* I had a little trouble somewhere along the way, with solder-sealing heat-shrinkable wire connectors (too many splices, joining leftover wires), so I finally quit trying to back-probe everything to find the "open hot", and went ahead and used an intact power cord replacement I had on hand. Should'a done that in the first place. The circuits work fine, now.
I surface-mounted the new outlets under my "bungee box", in a tight spot that wasn't easy to work in (my onboard generator lives there), but the best spot available.
* MORE TO COME.... added 4/18
* I'm a great fan of 1)bungee cords / 2)padlocks / 3)steel cables to secure my gear, i.e.:
- 1) I use 15-20 bungees at camp for my canopy, 10 inside the trailer, and 10 to secure my truck bed tarp covering,
- 2) there are 8 padlocks in the bed of my truck, 10 currently on my trailer, and more to come, and
- 3) I use 3 steel cables to secure gear inside the truck bed, and a really strong one to thread thru a trailer wheel to lock it to the trailer spring for theft prevention. And two chains to lockup my spare tire, with another padlock....
* Surely, that's plenty, but the two new side-mounted cargo boxes will require 8 more bungees, and at least two more cables, and 4 more padlocks, to satisfy my "secure gear" mania. I guess I lived in too many apartments early-on, then had theft problems while my gear sat exposed at some sketchy dragstrips, then didn't have enough enclosed storage at my semi-rural home for too long...you get the drift...I hate thieves and am sure that whatever isn't strapped & locked down will eventually get away. Or blown out of the open truck bed....
* So, I'm gonna use 4 straps per box (probably 15" EPDM-type), and one steel cable thru a padlock on each box, and another padlock on the other end of each box to keep the lid from coming off.
- more straps, more locks....
- securing the box.jpg (119.74 KiB) Viewed 775 times
* Call me obsessive, which I can be, but it's not that I don't trust my fellow campers (I camp with a core group, that I've known for years now), but sometimes at gas stations there are snoopers, and sometimes passers-by at state parks get a little touchy-feely with loose gear (what they do when I'm away from my site?, I don't know). It is what it is.
