water and electrical inlet

[Greg1410]

Re doing my electrical and plumbing. Bought a Furrion electrical inlet and a water inlet. Before I cut two big holes in my trailer, I would love to get some advice on placement of these inlets. This is a 73 Safari with bathroom in the back. Old inlets were from underneath in the back/street side corner. Need to keep it in this vicinity as I will have access under the bathroom sink and part of the shower. The pic shows the potential locations of the inlets with the green tape. Water would go on the bottom and electrical on the top. I would prefer it to go more in the rounded corner, but the inlets need to sit flush against a flat surface. Would love any feedback. Thanks.
Greg

[HiJoeSilver]

How much of your interior is in place. Has any been removed in the project process.

That's not a bad spot for them. I've got a 79 safari that I thought of that spot for my new electrical inlet but there is a access door on the back so I opted for the side of the trailer. If the inside skin is in place you won't be able to tell but there are wires that run across back there from curb side to street side to feed electric to the street side lights. Also 120v wires feeding the polarity light.
If you don't have inside skins off it is difficult to tell what's going to be inside the walls.

[Greg1410]

Thanks HiJoe - trailer is completely gutted - no interior walls at all, no bathroom, etc. Just getting the electrical in now (thanks for you help on some of those items). So I am pretty open. But there are not very many spots available - black tank is on top of the floor in the back toward the street side.
Greg

[HiJoeSilver]

Trailer being gutted makes it a lot easier. since you can make sure you're not going into anything.
I replaced my fresh water and electric inlets as well. Had the hard wired umbilcal and stupid pipe sticking out of the bottom back bumper right next to the sewage. Didn't like that. I was replacing the crappy fresh water fill at the time and decided I wanted to keep all the water stuff in the same area. Also wanted to keep the electric on the side of the trailer. I put the water up forward on the side and then run the piping from there. As long as it connects somewhere it doesn't really matter where the inlet is in the system.
Finding a place for the electrical was a bit more challenging. I put it in a small section between two ribs. It was a tight fit between the ribs since there wasn't much to begin with and the AC condensate drain line ran down in the same space. You can run 10 gauge wire along the floor behind the bottom outside corner of the shower pan and bath to the breaker panel which was on the opposite side. I ran it in some split loom to protect it a little more.
Picture taken after just finishing putting them in.
If you don't have one I recommend using a hole saw for the holes, it'll cost a little for the different sizes needed but reduces chances of messing it up. The hardest part was deciding where I wanted to put them and making sure I wasn't going to run into any issues on the back side. The thought of putting those big holes was a little unnerving to say the least, if you f it up they what you've got a big hole in the side of your pretty trailer.
I traced the new inlets on cardboard and cut out patterns, then taped them on and moved them around to get a god idea visualizing where I wanted them to go before drilling.
There's nothing wrong with where you want to put yours on the back, just have to get used to running from the back to the campground pedestal.

Joe

[Chuck]

find your bumper-box lid, and put it in place...flip it open, and make sure that the hose or cable isn't going to interfere. might need to move it up a little higher.

I haven't decided the exact locations of mine, yet, either. One other possibility I keep kicking around is to put the water inlet just aft of the street-side wheel well, kind of like in Joe's pic, only lower. (Joe, you must have a different arrangement inside; those spots would put the pipe/cable in my bed! the top part, where I put myself...not the bottom part where I put my clothes. ). There looks like there is just enough room there, under the bunk, but behind the wheel well. That space under the bunk is empty space in my trailer, originally consumed by the heat outlet, with lots of space on either side of it...the water lines run right through there on the floor, running between the galley up front, and the bathroom to the rear, so it could easily be connected there, and would be much easier to access *when* (not "if") you need access to repair a leak or replace the stuck/worn out check-valve. That is the main issue with the original inlet at the rear corner; the connection inside the trailer is almost impossible to access. On the other hand, it "looks" period-correct. I really don't like the look of those new inlets, (wrong shade of "shiny"; looks out of place), but that one model seems to be the only one in existence. For some reason, it doesn't look so out of place on the late-model 'streams. I dunno...maybe its just me.

As for the electric--a PO installed a telephone inlet plug in the back panel, just above where you have your tape marks, so I was going to take that out, and fill the hole with the 110 inlet. only problem is that this phone inlet is the same dimensions as a standard interior wall plate, which isn't the same profile as the 110v inlet. You know when I take that thing off, there's going to be marks in the clear coat. It would be nice if the electric inlet would cover it over, but I don't know that it will. other option would be an equally ugly hole with a patch over it, so I don't know how I'm going to address that.

I was looking at the prices on these inlets and the cables and such...makes me wonder, why do we need an "inlet"? maybe the hard-wired cable that was there originally wasn't such a bad idea. not so easy to steal, or drive off and forget, either.

[HiJoeSilver]

Chuck
My water inlets go in behind the back side of the kitchen cabinets slightly above the wheel well, so plenty of room. The electric goes into the bottom back of a closet where its behind some pipe and duct protecting it a bit. My trailer gaucho is in the front street side. There was a gaucho opposite side mid trailer opposite the kitchen. Removed and replaced with dinette.
I did a patch when replacing the old fresh water tank fill door, they are no longer available and mine was busted to heck, plus they let dirt in. Used a piece of alclad rounded the corners and spaced rivets nicely. Is it perfect, no, but it looks pretty nice. Pretty proud of how it came out. It's 37 years old it'll have some quirks.
Joe

[Chuck]

yeah, I figured it must be a totally different floor plan. In 73 safari, the bunks are over the wheels; galley (and fresh water tank) is just forward of that. The space under the bunk is consumed by storage bin space. There are 3 spaces , but only 2 of them have tambor doors and storage bins; the aft space had a fixed solid face, and the heat register was there. It takes up a lot of room, but not the whole section, so there is some empty wasted space there.

[Greg1410]

Thanks Chuck and Joe for the advice. Options are fairly limited in this trailer - I will put those inlets in the spots. Good advice about the bumper lid Chuck - I had not thought of that.
Greg