Maintenance Odds & Sods

So over the past little while, well actually forever, as Dale is quick to tell me, I have been poking around the Alto, thinking about projects and looking for maintenance items to take care. Reviewing my photos, I realized I had a bunch of little odds & sods that I could write up as a post, so here we go!



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Refrigerator Fan Update

The fan I installed a few years ago started to get annoyingly loud. A recent post on the FB group about this very topic prompted me to get it in gear and fix this issue.

I ordered a couple of Antec fans, based on a recommendation from Steve, and they soon magically appeared on our doorstep. As I wanted to install both of them, I pondered another method of mounting. After examining the upper vent cover, I decided to mount them directly on the cover. In this manner, the fans are situated as far forward of the rising heat flow as possible, and as close to the grills as possible. These covers are quite secure, so I am not anticipating any issues with this setup.

The fans offer 3 speeds, so I went with medium to start. Leaving the quick disconnects in place means it will be easy to remove the cover completely away from the Alto if necessary.

The fans run real quiet, a nice change from the noise the previous one was making.

For those interested, here is the fan used.
https://www.amazon.ca/Antec-TriCool-DBB-Switch-Monitor/dp/B00066ISES/ref=sr_1_27?ie=UTF8&qid=1532291577&sr=8-27&keywords=antec+cooling+fan


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Solar Panel Recaulking

The caulking around the edges of the solar panels was starting to look a little tired, and in some areas, seemed to be breaking down and crumbling. I cleaned up the edges by carefully removing any of the old caulking, taped accordingly to ensure a nice clean edge, then reapplied some fresh Adseal. The results look quite nice, and those edges look sharp.

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Reese Friction Plate

I had some urethane windshield adhesive left over from another little job, so not to let it go to waste, I looked over the Alto for areas that needed a little attention. I spied the friction plates for the weight distribution bars, that are glued to the top of the frame members.

Out came the masking tape, and the adhesive was soon back in tip top shape.

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Aluminum Insulation Cover

I’m not really sure what to call this little part of our Alto. Being #80, we have a few things that perhaps are no longer included on later models, and this is definitely one of them.

From the back of the fresh water tank to the rear of the Alto, the section between the frame members has a solid piece of styrofoam filling the entire area. This was then covered with form fitting aluminum.

I’m not really certain what was being achieved here. Was it simply an attempt to add a little R factor right below the sleeping area, or was it something a tad more sophisticated like modifying the under trailer airflow to achieve better aerodynamics. Whatever the real reason, I think one directly impacted the other.

The cutouts needed to accommodate the rear stabilizers, left the edge of the styrofoam exposed to the elements, and although I long ago knew this, only now is the problem being addressed. Perhaps the creation of my little bending brake made the job jump to the forefront again.

Sourcing some aluminum from my favourite metal shop, I pressed the bending brake into service to form some simple sides to enclose the area. These were then siliconed into place, some gap sealing happened, and the job was done.

Some stainless screws and washers were also used to further secure the edges of the aluminum, as there was a bit of sag happening, and that certainly was not going to be tolerated!