Forest River 2401R Stereo Upgrade

Our RV came with the upgraded head unit from Jenson and while it did work as intended it was far from premium and the included GPS unit left a lot to be desired. It served us for our first year of ownership, but with our planned tour of North America this summer something better was required.
After a lot of research, I decided to replace it with an Android Head unit which turned out to be an easy and very worthwhile upgrade.

The Sprinter dash comes apart in layers, you have to slowly remove the trim pieces to gain access to the fasteners which makes it possible to remove the next layer till you can finally remove the stereo. All of the fasteners are either the same length T25 Torx screws, plastic tabs, spring clips or molded hooks. I just had to take my time gently removing them.

Once I had the radio removed I spent some time labeling all the wiring of which there are a lot.

The replacement unit was from Joying and only required a little modification to mount it.

Once the I doubled checked the new wiring harness and checked to make sure everything was working as it should it was time to finish the install.

The finished product looks as good as the original and works far better with the ability to use numerous Android apps and the GPS using both North American as well as Glasnost satellites for a faster and more accurate fix

Read More

Mopeka LP Tank Check Sensor on a Horizontal RV Tank

My motorhome has 2 LP tank gauges both showing different readings, I had heard about a new way to monitor your LP tank using an ultrasonic sensor by Mopeka. It sounded like just what I needed but when it arrived, I discovered that while it works great on vertical tanks it's less than ideal on horizontal tanks like the kind that come on most class C RV's.

The problem is it's designed to mount on the flat part of the bottom of a vertical tank which a class C  with it's horizontally mounted tank causing the bottom of the tank to be rounded makes for a poor fit and not very accurate readings.

Fortunately, I have access to a 3d printer and after a few trial and errors in designing the case came up with a solution that works great.

 With the addition of a couple of zip ties to secure it to the tank, I now have a reliable sensor that will alert me before I run out of propane.

Read More