Aluminum Camper Forum

What city/state?

Interesting about the dimmable red lighting. Great idea for all kinds of sky-watching.

There are framing members in the back wall you can securely screw into. The trick is finding them. You may be able to push on the interior wall enough to figure out where the frame is. Another member just posted about updating the bathroom with a new cabinet on the wall and new sink. Hopefully they will chime in here.

https://aluminumcamperforum.com/index.php?topic=1771.0

Quote from: Cajun on January 21, 2025, 02:54:07 PMSorry kind of late on this one, you may have it fixed by now.

I have a 2014 16DBS and had the same issue. The diamond plate bottom trim was separated from the frame from the front of the slide to about 1 foot from the rear of the camper. I removed the trim completely to get a better look and low and behold the wall was separating from the frame. From the inside of the camper you could see light between the wall and the floor where it comes together. Just a few sheet metal screws hold the wall to the frame and they all came loose or were pulled out from sitting on the sofa that's on the slide.

It had gotten so bad that the shower wall had a gap big enough you could see light from the bathroom while sitting on the sofa. I pulled the wall back in and then screwed it like the factory, then added a 1/8"x4" flat aluminum from the front to the back of the camper to reinforce the whole wall. The wall will not separate from the frame again. I then reattached the original diamond plate and all is good.

Point is, look very closely to that separation and make sure the wall is not starting to separate from the frame like mine did. Mine started out just like yours with the diamond trim separating just a little. Hopefully this is not the case for you and it was just me having this issue. It was an easy fix being how serious this could have been.

Good reminder. Thanks for updating the issue.

So when you replace the axles, are you going with leaf springs? 

The RVupgradestore has replacement blower fans. Just find the make/model of your furnace and I bet you can order one. I've used their site for other parts in the past.

https://www.rvupgradestore.com/shop-s/1180.htm?Search=Furnace+blower

Wow! That looks really nice!

For our upcoming trip in late spring, we sprang for a new sofa. The original folding sofa in the 16 TBS was never satisfactory and as the cushion aged, the bar across the bottom front became unbearable to sit on. We considered all sorts of ideas, from replacing the existing cushion, to a simple dinette setup, to a complex recliner arrangement. A new jackknife sofa from RecPro seemed to be the best overall, so we ordered the 62" without legs that will sit on a new 3/4" plywood base in the slide.

We are also replacing the original toilet that's cracked, the stereo that no longer connects via Bluetooth to our phones, and the rearview camera setup that's getting blurry. It will be a busy refurbish time this spring!

Thanks for the ideas. I'll see what we can include. One thing I appreciate is noting the use of private campgrounds. I'm still reluctant to use those, but maybe I should give them a look on our route. Every one of the worst campsites we've experienced over our 11 years of camping with our trailer have been at private campgrounds. I guess I need to be more diligent in looking at reviews!

We are planning our first time taking a major camping trip in the spring. Past extended trips have all been summer/fall, but in 2025 we'll be heading out in early May.

The rough plans are to head west from Michigan on I-70, then north on I-15, then west on I-84, then spend some time on the west coast, and then head back east to Michigan on I-90. Any ideas for things we shouldn't miss are welcome.

I know mountain passes will still be snowy in May and we'll need to avoid freezing overnight temperatures, but it will be nice to not have campgrounds closed from summer forest fires (and driving through miles of endless smoke). We are also looking forward to not having to deal with 100F degree heat that wiped up much of our trip west in August 2023. 

Good find.

The Weboost Drive models come with an omnidirectional antenna. I've screwed mine onto the outside of camper, using the short mast and mounting adapter that comes with it. I admit it was mentally hard to drill a hole in the camper for the wire! I fastened the indoor antenna to the ceiling using industrial Velcro right over the couch where we use the phones. The booster is plugged into 12V and in a cabinet.

All carriers and all current technologies are boosted. 5G is a bit complicated because real 5G is only in cities and has a very short range. What most carriers call 5G for marketing purposes is really just a slightly faster LTE and it is boosted. I don't know if real 5G is boosted, but I don't camp in cities. 

https://www.weboost.com/products/drive-reach-rv-2

As Charlie noted, you can use a directional antenna like a yagi if you want to aim at a particular cell tower with a home booster. Interestingly, if you use a directional antenna, you have to get both vertical and horizontal aiming accurate to get a signal.

WeBoost does make systems for 120V that you could move around, providing you had in/out antennas in both places. The WeBoost Drive is 12V so that would not work in your house. Lots of places sell aftermarket antennas, so it's certainly an option to move a booster. I did permanently mount both inside and outside antennas on my camper.

Before I moved to Starlink at my cabin, I had an aftermarket yagi type antenna on my own 40' tower pointed at an AT&T tower 12 miles away. It was connected to a SureCall booster and worked! 

I found that with AT&T and my iPhone, WiFi calling works well if I turn off cellular, forcing the phone to use WiFi. You might try that with Verizon, just making sure you turn cellular back on when you leave the house.

Couple of quick ideas for you....

At home, your cell phone might have a provision for using your home wifi for calling/texting/data. My Iphone does. If that's the case, it would be much better than a weak cell signal. If not, a cell booster is a good bet. I used a Surecall Fusion at home before I switched to wifi calling and it worked great to bring a weak signal inside the house. The key is the outdoor antenna as well as the booster unit transmitting the signal to the inside antenna. 

On the road, your camper and vehicle very effectively block cell signals because of all the metal. It would be worth adding a cell signal booster. In my camper, I installed WeBoost Drive Reach. It works with all carriers and makes a dramatic improvement inside. Again, the key is the outdoor antenna. It's a better solution than chasing which carriers offer a better signal at any particular campground. Verizon or AT&T towers are used by pretty much all carriers and they both offer very broad coverage now. You really won't gain much coverage advantage in choosing one over the other. Make your carrier decisions based on other factors.

The mapping site at cellmapper.net is the best I've found for showing towers and signal strength for cell carriers. The signal strengths shown on the map are updated by actual user data, so it's pretty good.

Good to see another aluminum camper.