Interstate X Tear Down

[uncle_bob]

Hi

Everybody tears apart their new Airstream so much of this will be old news to many. For those few who have not pulled the back of an X apart:

The top of the bench comes off with a bunch of tan painted "drywall screws" around the edge. All are easily spotted once the cushions are removed. Under the top is a second layer. That comes off with pocket screws that tie it to the aluminum inner wall of the van. They both lift off, eventually giving you some access to various bits and pieces buried in the bench structure.

One thing you get to examine is the structure of the "bins" that are part of the benches:

As one would guess, there is a lot of dead space around the storage bins. If you look at one of the demo vans from last June, the "final" bins are a bit different than the demo bins. They traded "nice rectangular shape" for a bit less volume on a couple of them. With some effort you could rebuild it to be like a demo ....

CS front bin will nicely store one of the tables, along with all of the bits and pieces associated with it. It's RS "twin" is just barely to small to do the same job. Height is the main killer. There does not appear to be an easy "fix" to allow both to be stored.

The second bin from the front is a bit of a surprise. It is supported only at its face. Probably not a good idea to put the rock collection in this bin. Heading back, all of the others much better supported. They have some "tie in" to the metal support structure or the floor of the van.

Back bin on CS is right down on the floor of the van. If you need to haul your collection of gold ingots, this would be the one to use. There is plenty of room for a pair of Battle Born 100AH Lithiums. It looks like a pair of Renogy 175 AH might fit. I put in the BB's and did not try the Renogy.

When wiring in the added batteries, that thing that looks like an unused 12V post on the Blue Sea terminal block over the Smart Shunt ( behind the CS third bin back) is a floating terminal. Somebody saved 12 cents .....

There is a white wire floating around in the same area. It's grounded already and has a ring terminal on it. I just taped the thing off and moved on.

Airflow wise, the inverter is not quite set up perfectly. If you really need to run it full throttle for hours at a time, a fan by the vent plate would be a good idea. You could play with some baffling and help things a bit. Probably easier to add a fan.

There is plenty of space under the third bin back RS to easily mount a Progressive EMS. I have not quite decided where to put the remote display. No need to disassemble the bench to do this.

There are a number of inline fuses protecting this and that. The rear 12V power outlet fuse is buried back behind the access panel in the CS rearmost bin. Fun getting to it once the batteries go into that space .....

Could you add the batteries without tearing the bench apart? I suppose you could. It would be a *lot* less fun to do it that way.

Yes one could take pictures. Mostly they would just show piles and plies of black wire protector plastic.

Fun !!!

Bob

[jeffmc306]

Bob, you may have mentioned this in a previous post but are you keeping your 30’ Classic?

Just curious what your plans are for the Interstate 20X vs. the trailer. The Interstate clicks a lot of boxes for getting away off the beaten path. I’m guessing you won’t tow a TOAD?

[uncle_bob]

Originally Posted by jeffmc306

Bob, you may have mentioned this in a previous post but are you keeping your 30’ Classic?

Just curious what your plans are for the Interstate 20X vs. the trailer. The Interstate clicks a lot of boxes for getting away off the beaten path. I’m guessing you won’t tow a TOAD?

Hi

The Classic is still very much part of the family. There are things that a 30' plus F-350 really can't do easily. For those shorter / quicker / more nimble adventures, we decided to add the X to the fleet.

The tow limit on the X is in the vicinity of 5,000 pounds. That gets things to the point that a TOAD would be difficult for the two of us full sized folks and the two full sized dogs.

Bob

[justinshort]

Nice write up, thank you Bob. I'm picking mine up next week and look forward to digging around. One of my beefs with my '20 AI was the inability to add supplemental power to the fridge as this seems to be one of the bigger draws on the system for me. I have a 3k Goal Zero that I sit right behind the driver seat and I'd really like to figure out how to power the fridge with this.

Have you explored any of that?

[Xman]

Good info Bob. I did not really think about how sturdy or flimsy the storage compartments were until you brought it up.

We took our benches apart to fix a problem with the Timberline electric heating element not working. It was a loose ground wire for the relay control. Timberline was very helpful in diagnosing the problem.

While the bench was torn apart we also routed an additional set of slots for the bed cross bars. Maybe the production versions are different from the demo units. In the Airstream videos it looks like they install the larger cushions in the back but we found you could only install the short cushions in the back of the van. Otherwise, you could put a knee or hand on the cushions while crawling around on the bed and they would flip. Adding another set of slots allowed us to use either set of cushions in the back.

We also added another Lagun table mount farther forward so that we could have the large cushions in the back made up as a bed and use the front as a 2 or 3 person dinette. The Lagun mount can be added to the RS bench without having to take the bench top off.

[uncle_bob]

Originally Posted by justinshort

Nice write up, thank you Bob. I'm picking mine up next week and look forward to digging around. One of my beefs with my '20 AI was the inability to add supplemental power to the fridge as this seems to be one of the bigger draws on the system for me. I have a 3k Goal Zero that I sit right behind the driver seat and I'd really like to figure out how to power the fridge with this.

Have you explored any of that?

Hi

The fridge is a bit of a bear to get at. I think that you would do *way* better to just install more house batteries vs trying to run it off something like a Goal Zero. Less hassle to install and it "just works" ( = all the charging / monitoring / routing is already in place).

Bob

[uncle_bob]

Originally Posted by Xman

Good info Bob. I did not really think about how sturdy or flimsy the storage compartments were until you brought it up.

We took our benches apart to fix a problem with the Timberline electric heating element not working. It was a loose ground wire for the relay control. Timberline was very helpful in diagnosing the problem.

While the bench was torn apart we also routed an additional set of slots for the bed cross bars. Maybe the production versions are different from the demo units. In the Airstream videos it looks like they install the larger cushions in the back but we found you could only install the short cushions in the back of the van. Otherwise, you could put a knee or hand on the cushions while crawling around on the bed and they would flip. Adding another set of slots allowed us to use either set of cushions in the back.

We also added another Lagun table mount farther forward so that we could have the large cushions in the back made up as a bed and use the front as a 2 or 3 person dinette. The Lagun mount can be added to the RS bench without having to take the bench top off.

Hi

Oddly enough our Timberline isn't running at the moment. The theory is that it needs a new fan on the front radiator (under the fridge). The "official" parts empire seems to be struggling a bit getting them. ( I have a couple here, but I'd rather they do the repair. They will only work with "official" parts).

The whole bed strut thing does need to be addressed. I also will be putting in another table mount.

Bob

[Nichols117]

Nice write up on the benches/bins. I had my 24X at the Jackson Center service facility last week. They fixed the service recall on the inverter, ran new solar wiring from the panels to the controller and fixed the sliding door. The "floating" white wire is a ground wire for the solar controller according to the service technician. You will need to replace the ring terminal with a smaller ring to attach it to the controller.

[justinshort]

Could you point me to the inverter recall? Also, why did you need new solar panel wiring?

I’m picking up my 24x tomorrow in Tampa.

[XPat]

Our heater runs without the forward fan. If your heater won't run at all it's probably not just that fan.

Our heater worked for a while and then intermittently began to throw a "fault code 45" and show a tank temperature of 261F. According the manufacturer that code means an open. There was a pin loose in one of the connectors and reseating this fixed the problem. Ours is the second "loose pin" problem I'm aware of.

If you have the bench taken apart you might want to visually inspect the connectors while you're in there. It's a cheap and fast fix if that's the problem.

[uncle_bob]

Hi

A ground to the solar controller makes sense. Since it's already bonded ( by being screw down) to the aluminum inside wall, I'm not to worried about it being case grounded. Case ground is the only thing that might be missing. The negative power lead is already on there.

I have not attempted to do anything with the heater. At this point, I'm still in "let the dealer do his thing" mode on that front. If it pushes out into February, I may get more pro-active on that front. There's also the issue with getting to the cellular pre-wire to be sorted out.

I did check all the connectors I could spot under the benches. I (as noted elsewhere) found one that had some exposed wire. That got taped up.

Indeed, what's the inverter recall and why new solar wires?

My appointment at JC for the van isn't until April so I'm not sure I can stand the excitement of waiting until then to find out

Bob

[Nichols117]

Some of the first 24Xs coming off the line had the inverters wired incorrectly. Your dealer should be able to check if your 24X is effected via the VIN or serial number. Airstream customer service is closed until January 3rd.

The solar had not worked from the day I picked up the van in October. My mistake, it was a cloudy afternoon. After multiple days of trying to diagnose the problem with the dealer and Airstream's customer service I decided to make the 10 hour drive to Jackson Center. It took the technician two days to correct the recall and diagnose the solar issue. The solar wiring had to be replaced due to a short in the positive wire.

[uncle_bob]

Hi

My van did a number of cycles between "shipping tomorrow" and "back to the floor for work". My guess is that some of this stuff started getting better screened as they moved through the first batch.

Bob