Thursday 25 March 2021

Wiring problems and the shower

I had this rather brilliant idea on mounting the shower tent to the trailer.  Using the off-cuts from the flat steel I made four small rectangular pieces of steel and then drilled a hole through the middle of each one.  These pieces of steel are now the right width and thickness to fit into the aluminium profile railing that secures the tent to the trailer. 

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I need to secure the heads of the bolts that will fit into the steel plates and I don’t have any welding equipment.  I’m going to try using Sikaflex.  The bolts go through the plates and then through the shower tent mounting brackets.

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Hopefully the Sikaflex will stop the head of the bolt turning when I tighten the nut.  <two hours later>  That didn’t work.  Another solution is required!

Meanwhile I’ve been attempting to get the trailer indicator lights working.  However these is a problem and it’s all Ken’s fault <I can blame Ken because he isn’t here to contradict me Smile >  .  It has taken me an hour to realise the problem was there was a fault in the earth (ground) trailer wiring.  With that fixed I still had a problem with the upper left indicator.  Another wiring fault.

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A loose spade connector connection

Unfortunately that still didn’t fix the problem and I had to delve further into the wiring loom to find yet another loose connection. 

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Three separate breaks in the wiring, all caused by me pulling on the cable loom in an effort to make it reach the new light fitting location. 

I can’t actually test the lights as the vehicle is at the garage.  Instead I made the rooftop tent bed.

The first step was to lay out the shade cloth on the tent carpet floor.

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This will (hopefully) act as a “breather” membrane between the bottom of the mattress and the floor of the tent box.   Then the mattress was fitted.  This wasn’t an easy task as it’s bigger than both the tent entrances and the floor of the tent box.  I tied it into a roll to get it into the tent and then packed it under the lips around the edges of the tent box.

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The mattress is 75mm thick and firm.  That’s firm in capitals.  To take some of the firmness out of the mattress (I’m getting old) I’ve installed a 30mm foam topper.

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Finally I’ve fitted my old US Army poncho liner purchased in the Hawaii PX back in 1984.

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There’s also room for the sleeping bag and pillow with the tent in the closed (travelling) position.  I just need to test the indicator wiring and the trailer is good to go.

 

2 comments :

Dave said...

H'mm

Looking at that 2nd joint it seems one side has a much heavier cable into the blue crimp than going into the red crimp (hence the different crimp sizes).
I hope the lower rated cable (in the red) is capable of taking the current.

I would also suggest some strain relief to stop the connectors parting again or change to a proper multiway plug/socket

Tom and Jan said...

Dave you're right about the cable sizes. The heavier green cable was all I had at the time when I needed to extend the wiring. There are clips in the trailer to enable strain relief. However they didn't work when I started seriously tugging on the cables. My error!