Rear Compartment Overhaul

Railcat · 07-31-2014, 05:07 AM

I was digging around the rear compartment looking for an easy way to wire up my rear stabilizer jack and decided to kill two birds with one stone. As many of you know that have the rear compartment the plastic tub caves in if you place electrical cord or anything heavy where there is no supports. I started pulling it out, looks like it was an afterthought. Anyway I pulled all of it out plastic tub along with the cheap balsa wood around it. The cool thing is its very well supported and made underneath it all. I laid decking boards down front to back and all the way to the door. It goes a lot farther back and goes a lot wider with the plastic tub out. I would say around 4-5 feet deep and around 68 inches wide its huge under there now.

The other problem no power for my stabilizers, I decided not to run wires from the front all the way to the rear instead I added a rear battery. I bought a battery box mounted it to the side and ran my wires. I also mounted an on board battery charger. Oh and to those that have the rear compartment its a piece of cake to wire a trailer plug wires are easily seen with all that crap out of the way.

Then my next two problems one of which has been no good way to turn the fridge off, and the other no power for my charger. There are about 5-7 AC power wires back there that are very easy to access, find the one that powers the fridge and cut into it after shore power, inverter, and 12v is all turned off and verified. I installed a GFI outlet and a heavy duty switch after the outlet inline in the circuit. So now I can have my ODS breaker on all the time and won't lose any saved settings on my entertainment stuff. Just an easy on off switch for the fridge, and what's really cool I have an outlet that can be ran by shore power, genny power, and power from my inverter. I will add this was not an easy project took a lot of trial and error with screw lengths and scratching of the head. I will try and post some pictures tomorrow. So I guess I killed 3 birds with one large stone. LOL!

rob_fla · 07-31-2014, 11:42 AM

Pictures of the rear compartment makeover would be great, the more outside storage we can get on our 38FL the better since the front storage is quite a bit smaller than a typical front bedroom / rear living layout.

Railcat · 07-31-2014, 03:36 PM

Well the pictures are not very good, I already got it filled up so not much to see. I've got my heated hose, 1 25ft cheap hose, black tank flush hose, 1 50ft and 1 25ft drinking water hoses, two sets of sewer hose supports, 30ft 50amp heavy duty cord, factory 50amp cord, sat dish, battery and charger, and some jack pads for the rear stabilizer. Still room for a little but pretty full.