Travel Trailer Cont'd

To carry on from the last post.  There were two more items that have been added.  The original fridge to the trailer was long gone, but it came with a little 120V bar fridge.  I figured that this would draw too much current plugged into the converter box and it would eat up the battery quickly that we went to WalMart and purchased a 12V Coleman cooler.  With this purchase I ran a 12V wire from my electrical junction to where the fridge and installed a cigarette lighter plug for it to plug into.  This will also likely come in handy if I need to charge a phone. 

The second item is that there was a propane light fixture at the front of the trailer and it was beat up.  The fixture didn't stay onto the fitting and orifice off of the propane line.  Also I would need a new mantle and globe, which would likely be difficult to source replacements for the originals.  I looked online and I found a few propane fixtures that I could purchase, but none were quite what I was looking for and neither was the price.  I had an idea that I should extend the pipe and put a ninety degree elbow onto it and from there put the same fitting as a throw-away 1lb propane bottle.  I already had a camp light and there are propane trees that people tap into with lights so I figure this is a good idea to go with.  I searched online and found a local distributor here in Calgary, Fairview Fittings. 

With my limited experience selling brass fittings at Home Hardware in Rimbey, AB, I knew that I needed brass and that I was coming off of a steel tube that I would likely need a compression fitting.  On my first trip to Fairview I was less informed than I needed to be.  I knew there was a milled nut on the end going into the original light fitting, but I didn't know what that meant.  I came to mean that the tube was flared and that I should go right off of that nut, but I didn't know the size of the nut.  So on round two I came back with the fitting from the light, so that I would get the right one.  It happened to be a 3/8" flare, from there I went into a 3" nipple so that I could get away from the wall a bit more, into a 90 degree elbow up which reduced it to the size that the Primus fitting required.  The Primus fitting is the same thread as the 1 lb throw away propane bottles.  I shall test it out this weekend, as we are going to take the trailer out on it's maiden voyage (for us) and there won't be electric to plug into so the light may come in handy.

The thing I have learned so far doing these repairs and upgrades to the trailer is that this stuff is not hard, it takes a little bit of learning, some thinking and figuring and just about anyone can do it.  I may not be as fast a trades person that does this everyday, but I have learned something along the way and saved a few dollars in the process.