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Letter 38

Isuzu Trek Members Infoletter #38
 Spring 2016

Index:

1994 Trek Leveling Jacks, External WIFI antenna for you techies that wanna steal WIFI, How to keep your newer Norcold door off the floor, A more convenient diesel fill, Trek Rain Gutters, A little more storage


From our previous editor Ken Harmon;

Most if not all the 94′ had the RVA JII rocker switch controlled jack system (but Safari did do mid year changes on some things).

Try looking at the following link  http://www.rvajacks.com/mop.php . Basically the instructions are to retract all the jacks, extend one 6″, fill the jack reservoir with Dextron III until the red light and bong go off.

On my 94 24′ trek the pump and reservoir assembly is located in the upper aft of the left front wheel well, it is a little hard to get to.  The filler cap is on top, the dip stick part of the cap was removed at the factory to make you use the red light/bong fill procedure. Even when the system is full it will sometimes bong when going over rough ground.

When I serviced mine the first time I noticed the cap was vented to atmosphere in the very dirty wheel well environment. To prevent contamination I devised a filter using open cell foam (you can blow through it) and a fabricated clamp that went around pump housing and holds the foam in place.

Hope this helps.

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Bob and Wanda Diachuk     bobdiachuk (at) gmail.com I’ve a pretty cool mod done to the trek to help with improving Wi-Fi connection, an Alfa 2000mw 2W Waterproof Marine high power Long Range Outdoor Antenna attached to an Alfa R36 802.11 b,g,N Wireless-N Router allowing me to bring in a distant wifi signal and redistribute on my own secure hotspot! works like a charm …a little firmware update required but not to difficult to set up.

Drilled through roof, modified a sewer vent to waterproof a 1-1/4″ pvc tube … mounted antenna so I can extend up to 42″ above the coach .. if required to clear walls/other coaches etc.

Bret and Laura Medbury, islandduo (at) comcast.net

If any of you have replaced your fridge with a newer Norcold that has the plastic hinges on the door portion of the hinge be careful as a number of these have broken.  It is not cool to have the entire door fall off while crossing the Golden Gate. According to Norcold the only solution is to replace the entire door. Most that have failed have the heavy raised wood decorative front panel which is heavy, but doors with lighter front panels have failed also. Here is a simple preemptive repair you can do that will prevent this type of failure. Careful though, as it is expensive, might exceed $0.10.

The object is to move the load point from the tip of the plastic hinge inboard so it is under the door. It uses a simple flat washer cut in half with half glued to the metal hinge than the other half to the underside of the door with a dab of grease (that is the expensive part) between the two so they will slide and you are good to go. I think the washers were 5/8″ but whatever fits.

Also from Bret and Laura, but snagged from Trek Tracks This one was posted by Yvan from Alaska on 6/2/16

fuel tank - 38Isuzu fuel tank improvement The way FUel tank is positioned on Isuzu Trek, it makes it very difficult to fill the tank to the full mark. Also adding fuel from a jerrycan is impossible without a funnel. I extended filling neck of the tank to the wall of the Trek. Inexpensive, and makes life easier.

Materials for tank mod.: short fuel resistant hose, some hose clamps, support bracket made out of some aluminum  laying around and short pipe same thread as on the tank. It fills just as fast as before the mod.

 

Isuzu Trek Gutters, Ken Harmon & Cathy Haight, IsuzuTrek at aol.com

In an earlier Infoletter I talked about the issues we had with micro cracks in our fiberglass roof.  Over time our first fix, fiberglass boat deck paint, deteriorated and the cracks reappeared.  Our latest solution to the problem was to install the Minnesota RV latex rolled-on roof coating.  This seems to work well but it had an undesirable side effect.  There was a noticeable increase in streaks coming down from the roof.  But then we noticed it was not appearing under the awning where it has a built-in gutter.  In retrospect I realized that latex paint is a rubber-like compound and rubber roofs are know for the streaking they cause.  The roof also tends to collect the fine black dust from tire wear on the highway and that adds to the streaking.

gutters - 38The solution: install gutters all the way around the coach. I fabricated small aluminum gutters and downspouts and installed them.  The gutters were attached using sheet metal screws inserted in the holes in the heads of the pop rivets along the straps that connects the fiberglass roof to the sidewalls.  The gap along the top of the gutter was sealed with RTV calking.  Small downspouts were added that drain the water away from the sidewalls. The downspouts were installed as needed or at about six-foot intervals.  See picture.

On the front and back fiberglass caps I used the self-sticking rubber gutter material obtained from the RV parts store and installed it with openings at the corners of the coach .  The openings channel the water to concentrate the run-off for easier clean-up.  The project turned out to be a lot more work than I anticipated but so far it seems to be working well.

Wanna add a bit more storage to your Isuzu? Above the fuel tank there is an unused area that is currently just wasted. It helps a bit that years ago I  switched to a single starting battery and have removed those sheet metal dividers, that was years ago, but I had a couple of large flat items that needed a good home.

This looked like the perfect spot. Only one rule and that was I must make it only from stuff I already had. Built a box to fit the area above the tank approximately 24″ wide, 18″ deep, and 5 1/4″ high that fits nicely. It could be both wider and a bit deeper, but I was working with what I had and  I carry a fuel can for my scooter in here that restricts the deeper dimension. The box uses the Trek underside as it’s top.

If you are interested in the single chassis battery conversion any good quality battery over 800 CCA will dependably start your Isuzu to temp at least as low as 15 deg. F. Group 27 fits well.