States Sticker

Modding Our R-Pod

In my last post you heard about the purchase of our R-Pod travel trailer and the need to modify it to fit our needs.  Some things we changed/added right away, some things were added more recently.  This post is a collection of all of the things we have done so far to modify our R-Pod, in no particular order.

States Sticker
States Sticker

We wanted to have a way to show off all of the states we visited with our trailer, and of course Amazon had us covered with this vinyl decal.  Every time we visit a new state, we add a sticker.

Furnace & Water Heater Screens
Furnace & Water Heater Screens
Refrigerator Screens
Refrigerator Screens

California isn’t too bad when it comes to bugs, but we do have a lot of spiders by us.  We knew we would be visiting a lot of states with far worse bug issues, and had heard how they can get inside openings in your camper and wreak havoc.  This was an easy fix, and once again Amazon had us covered.

 

Sewer Hose Holders
Sewer Hose Holders

Now we all know that “everybody poops”, but not everyone does in their RV/trailer.  Once we got over the idea of it, we had to get some high quality hoses and then we needed somewhere to store them.  After some minor modifications, these sewer hose holders from Camping World did the trick.

Temperature Gauge
Temperature Gauge

It’s nice to know what the temperature is outside and with this unit from our friends at Amazon not only do we know the temperature outside (thanks to a sensor mounted under the trailer) but we also added an additional sensor inside our refrigerator to make sure it is cooling properly.

Knife Rack
Knife Rack

When cooking, it’s nice to have your knifes nearby.  We have a magnetic knife bar on the wall of our kitchen and we love it. It made perfect sense to put something similar in the trailer.  So far, the magnet has been strong enough that no knifes have gone flying while traveling down the road.

Spice Rack
Spice Rack

Similar to the knifes, we needed somewhere to keep the spices and other small containers.  These just use 3M tape to hold them up to the wall and keep everything upright and out of our limited cabinet space.

Cabinet Organizers
Cabinet Organizers

Speaking of cabinets, we found these sweet bins at our local Bed, Bath and Beyond and they fit perfectly.  There are actually four in this cabinet (you can only see two), which helps keep everything from sliding around and tipping over.

Table Leg
Table Leg

Our dinette table originally had these fancy, spring-loaded, folding table legs.  They were pretty nice, but took up so much room underneath the table, that anyone with long legs (me), couldn’t slide into the dinette very easily.  We fixed that by replacing the whole unit with this pedestal mount.  The leg just pulls out and the table can still move down to become the support for the bed.  The table has a little more wobble to it than before, but this is worth it for the ability for 4 adults to now sit around it.

Shower
Shower

Our bathroom is a “wet bath” which means the toilet and shower are the same room.  It’s kind of like showering in a phone booth, though I doubt anyone younger than us even knows what that means.  Space was at a premium and originally our bathroom had a small corner sink.  The sink was small enough to not really be much use, but large enough to be a real nuisance when showering.  It is actually quite a common mod to remove these.  We did just that, and upgraded the shower head/fixture to one designed to give maximum pressure/flow from an RV system.  It has made a huge difference in our shower experience.

New Mattress
New Mattress

One of the first changes we made, was the mattress.  Our trailer has what they call a “RV Queen”, which is shorter than an actual Queen bed.  As someone who is 6 feet tall, this is already not comfortable.  The original mattress with our trailer was maybe 4 inches thick and useless.  Found this one online and it is more than double the thickness of the original.  It also has real springs and padding in it and is quite comfortable.

TV Mount
TV Mount

Our trailer came with a 19″ LCD TV.  Now normally when camping, we don’t really spend any time inside watching tv.  Our last trip to Lake Del Valle, it rained for two of the four days we were there.  After being thankful for having a trailer to go inside, we did partake in a little TV.  We quickly realized that the tv mount that came with our trailer was terrible.  Not only could we not position the tv properly for view from the bed or the dinette, it was also tilted at an angle up.  A quick and cheap fix from Amazon made watching tv in the R-Pod easier and no longer hurt our necks.

Privacy Curtains
Privacy Curtains

Our trailer sleeps “four”.  Two in the queen bed and two in the dinette bed.  Being that our trailer is only 20 feet long, the two beds are not very far apart.  We were getting ready to go camping with my mother and Andi pointed out that it might be nice to have at least a little privacy in our beds.  Some tension curtain rods, curtains, and a little sewing help from my sister and we had privacy curtains for both of the sleeping areas that slid out-of-the-way during the day.

Bathroom Mirror
Bathroom Mirror

Even when camping, you want to make sure you don’t look like a complete hot mess.  Some 3M tape and a cheap mirror and we had ourselves a mirror on the back of the bathroom door.

Fantastic Fan Cover
Fantastic Fan Cover

We have a great little exhaust fan in the bathroom, that can really move air.  It’s great for pulling in fresh air and cooling down the trailer.  This little add-on enables us to leave the vent cover open all the time, even when traveling.  It keeps bugs and water out and lets the air in.  A must have, in my opinion.

Storage Compartment Combination Locks
Storage Compartment Combination Locks

All of our outside storage compartments had key locks before, and it was a pain.  Also, every other camper had the same locks with the same keys.  These were easy to swap out and now we don’t need to carry keys around.

Battery Upgrades
Battery Upgrades

Our trailer came with dual batteries, which is very nice.  We did upgrade a little though, by adding on a battery cutoff switch.  In addition to this, we added an external battery charger/maintainer.  With the batteries disconnected via the cutoff, this will do a better job keeping the batteries at full charge long-term than the onboard charger.

Electric Tongue Jack
Electric Tongue Jack

Spinning those manual jacks up and down are a real pain.  With this electric one, all we have to do is hold a switch.  It’s great for making sure we get the trailer perfectly level.

 

So those are all the mods we have done so far.  Check back, as we have more planned before we head out on our trip.

Steven

Lives for fixing or working on anything (machine, tech, whatever). If it's broken, he'll fix it; if it's not broken, he'll find a way to make it better (or broken). Loves Andrea, cars, airplanes, hockey, camping, hiking and anything outdoors. Trying to figure out this blog thing as well as become a better photographer. Looking forward to any and all adventures traveling the world has to offer.

14 thoughts to “Modding Our R-Pod”

  1. I think you did some great mods on your trailer. The good thing is that you guys were able to test it in the real world before heading out for the long trip. Great blog, btw!

  2. Love the photos of the rig! You two are going to have so much fun! Definitely got me thinking about what i want in my trailer one day.

    1. I ordered it, the trim mounding and some matching tape to cover the holes, all directly from Forrest River. You can find their contact information at: http://www.forestriverinc.com/ContactUs.aspx. If you provide them with your VIN number, they can lookup color and make sure to send the correct parts. If you tell them you are removing the sink in the R-Pod they should be able to help guide you on what you need, it is a fairly common mod. Hope this helps, thanks for reading!

  3. Thanks for sharing. Great ideas for my 179. Any more details on the dinette table mod? Awesome idea!

    1. Hello Jim, thanks for the kind words. As for the table leg mod, it was pretty straight forward. I removed the existing leg setup. I ordered a new leg and two brackets to hold it on. I screwed one bracket to the underside of the table, being careful to use the longest possible screws without poking through the top of the table (the actual size escapes me right now). I then bolted the bottom bracket to the floor. I reinforced the floor by screwing a piece of 3/4″ plywood I had laying around to the underside of the rpod floor under the new table bracket. This way, the bolts went through the plywood and won’t pull through the thing flooring. I spray painted the plywood black to protect it and then used some silicone sealant around the bold/screw holes and around the plywood to make sure everything was water tight. All and all I am fairly happy with it, though as I said in the post, if I were to do it again I would probably use two legs to make the table rock solid. This would sacrifice legroom, so I suppose it depends on how secure you want your table. Good luck to you!

  4. Thank you again! Appreciate the response. This is very helpful. Good idea reinforcing the floor. I had not thought about that. I was going to see if I could find a nice 2-3″ threaded pipe with flanges to mount top and bottom. I will let you know how it turns out.

  5. what shower head setup did you order that’s a clean setup and interested in the same mod for my RPod

  6. Can you tell me where you got your refrigerator screens? Cannot find them anywhere!

  7. Hi, I’m hoping you still read the posts. Can you share the mattress brand and where you purchased it. We just came home from our first trip…with the original mattress. That is the first thing that needs changed. Thanks so much.

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