My FF 189-FBR

Chirpz · 07-30-2016, 11:12 PM

Back in May, we found this excellent deal on a 2008 FF 189-FBR and decided to "trade up" by selling our old 1982 Kit Companion and buy this rig. It is your classic "Grandma's" trailer that has never really been used. Everything about it is like new so we bit the bullet and bought it. After a couple of weeks we sold the Kit for a good price so we were happy with the deal.

A little buyers remorse set in when we tried to fit all our stuff into the new trailer. The Kit was actually 1 foot shorter than the FF but it had gobs more usable "room" inside due to the clever way trailers used to be made. We had a 4 burner stove with a full oven and lots of counter space with room to spare for our ice maker. A larger double sink. A bigger table. BUT on the down side, it had a standard double bed and a tiny bathroom where you sit on the toilet to take a shower. We travelled about 30,000 mile in that little critter but patching it up was a constant battle and it was time for a change.

Now I'm looking for ideas to make the transition to this smaller space work for us.

In this thread, I'll post the changes that I have made and eagerly listen out for cool ideas that I can use and things I can learn to avoid problems.

Chirpz · 07-30-2016, 11:18 PM

The first problem that we encountered upon getting the newer trailer was the fact that our "trailer port" was too short. Our Kit Companion had a low profile air condition that was only 5" tall. The FF has a standard tall AC unit. So the FF would not fit into our parking cover. We had to raise the roof to get it in or replace the AC with a low profile type. Raising the roof was a lot cheaper and my son did most of the work. As a temporary measure, we let the air out of the tires and eased it into place, then raised the roof with it parked in place. We ended up raising the roof a full 9 inches just for good measure. There is plenty of clearance now.

Chirpz · 07-30-2016, 11:30 PM

Some of our past trips have been long, 6,000 mile plus. So we need room for supplies. Our Kit had cubby holes and sneaky storage everywhere that there was an air space. The FF people tend to cover over empty space.

I read on this forum comments from one person who opened up the speaker cabinets so I though I would give it a try. A firm thump with the fist popped out the 1/8" panel that covers over the empty space where the outdoor speakers are located.

I measured the openings and then went to Goodwill where I found an end table for $9.00 that had two doors on it that fit the opening pretty good. Some spring hinges from Ace Hardware mounted the doors along with the snap latches from the end table. I cut the panels in half and used them for flooring in the cabinets. I relocated the wires in the left cabinet and covered over the bundle of wires in the right cabinet using a cable cover also from Ace.

Here is the result. Maybe not designer perfect but now I have room for lots of peanut butter. There is lots of room in there. I know this will make the speaker sound bad, but I really don't care about that. As a plus, I can see if they are leaking.

Oh... below the cabinet, I hung a towel holder, a napkin holder and and note bin.

profdant139 · 07-31-2016, 09:08 AM

I'm one of the folks who did the same thing with the speaker cabinets. In fact, there is hidden storage space everywhere -- under the seats, under the furnace, under the fridge, etc. I ripped out the vanity and installed cabinets.

Good luck with your new trailer, and be sure to ask questions --welcome to the club!!

**LJAZ** · 07-31-2016, 09:34 AM

You could try mounting something similar to these on the backs of the speakers:
Foam Speaker Baffles at Crutchfield.com
They are pretty cheap and would also protect the speaker wiring.

Michigantraveler · 07-31-2016, 10:48 AM

Curious since we have the same year and model...how tall is the FF with the airconditioner? We have not measured ours yet but would like to know if you have.
Your cabinet mod looks very good.

Chirpz · 07-31-2016, 10:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Michigantraveler

Curious since we have the same year and model...how tall is the FF with the airconditioner? We have not measured ours yet but would like to know if you have.
Your cabinet mod looks very good.

Nine Feet Six Inches if I recall correctly.

Chirpz · 07-31-2016, 10:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LJAZ

You could try mounting something similar to these on the backs of the speakers:
Foam Speaker Baffles at Crutchfield.com
They are pretty cheap and would also protect the speaker wiring.

Nice!! I'll consider that.

Chirpz · 07-31-2016, 11:02 PM

My old trailer had a nice storage area built into the back bumper but since the FF has no bumper, I decided to use an idea that I saw on this forum to make a storage bumper of my own.

From Lowes, I obtained a 5" fence post with two end caps, some sheet metal screws with large heads (I think they are called "tress headed screws"), and some glue. I also bought a long 1/8" drill bit that is long enough to drill through both sides of the post and some 3/8" white apprentice plugs.

Using the glue and some duct tape, I positioned the post in place so that it sticks out a little bit on the left side. Then I drilled through both sides of the pipe and into the trailer frame being careful not to move the pipe. (A helper is helpful.) Next, I enlarged the outer hole using a 3/8" drill bit making a hole large enough to pass a long philips magnetic screw driver through it. I then screwed the post to the frame of the trailer. I also put a few screws upward from the bottom into the plywood flooring. Using the 3/8" apprentice plugs I plugged the 3/8" holes so they look tidy. I left the bottom holes open for drainage.

I already had an old gutter pipe that I used as a drawer inside of the fence post although this is not necessary. On the right side, I glued and screwed the cap onto the post. On the left side I elected to secure the cap with a long piece of stiff wire down from the top.

Now I have a neato place to store the nasty hose away from my other stuff and it looks almost like it was made that way in the first place.... it should have been.

Special thanks to others who previously posted this idea.

Chirpz · 07-31-2016, 11:15 PM

We haven found any fun with our FF yet but I have been having some fun fixing it up. Someone on the forum suggested changing out the cheesy shower head for one that works more efficiently so I decided to take their advice and make the swap. I purchased an Oxygenics shower head using this link...

https://goo.gl/1FfsDI

and installed it in the corner of the shower. I patched up the holes in the stall using some silicone. While I was at it, I noticed that the stall had some warped places that had pulled away from the wall. I'll fix them better another day. I could not find any sanitary drive rivets for a reasonable price so I just used some stainless screws with decorative washers. You can see them in the picture. I screwed all the warped places tight and re-caulked the whole bathroom.

Michigantraveler · 08-01-2016, 05:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chirpz

Nine Feet Six Inches if I recall correctly.

Thanks! So a 10 foot carport would work as long as the roof didn't slope on the sides.

Michigantraveler · 08-01-2016, 06:01 AM

Good solution. In the past I have seen comments that storing a sewer hose in a metal bumper is a bad idea because the moisture from the hose could cause it to rust from the inside. Of course who knows how many years it would take to rust through? But your plastic storage idea would not have that problem. Looks good!

Chirpz · 08-03-2016, 05:44 PM

We like to bring our Water Pic with us when we camp and if we are "boondocking," we need to have an inverter to provide the power to run it. There is precious little space to place the Water Pic in this camper. We decided that next to the kitchen sink along the back wall was the only place. It barely fits there and it is closer to the range than I like but it will have to do.

I glued the inverter to the underside of the cabinets onto the vertical rail that is between the cabinet doors. I ran some #12 wire from the breaker box to the inverter using a new fuse. There were 3 empty circuits in the 12V side of the power box so I used one of them for this circuit. It was pretty easy to cut a hole for an outlet to the right of the range and run a power cord from the inverter to the outlet. I made one mistake cutting my outlet hole 3/8" too high so after it was all was done, I was left with a crack to caulk under the outlet. It was difficult to drill the hole for the wires to come through the counter top destroying the 3/8" strip of panelling. I caulked the crack with white caulk which I'll have to fix later because its kind of ugly.

I put a cheap full time night light in the outlet so that I have a visual reference indicating whether or not the inverter is turned ON. I don't like to leave it on. The wire for the water pick will run along the wall behind the range with some clips to hold it in place.

Oh... the cord shown in the picture was temporary used to hold the inverter in place until the glue dried.

Chirpz · 08-03-2016, 06:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Michigantraveler

Good solution. In the past I have seen comments that storing a sewer hose in a metal bumper is a bad idea because the moisture from the hose could cause it to rust from the inside. Of course who knows how many years it would take to rust through? But your plastic storage idea would not have that problem. Looks good!

Our old 1982 Kit Companion had the hose stored in the metal bumper all those years.... no problems. It was rusty inside...but the bumper was thick enough to not matter thus far.

Chirpz · 08-03-2016, 07:21 PM

I'm scrounging for storage space so I knocked out the small panel that is under the refridgerator to the left of the power panel. In addition to giving you access to the back of the power panel it also opens up a pretty large storage area. You can take a peek at the inside of the wheel well to look for water leaks and you can store quite a bit of stuff in there if you are careful.

Warning.... this is one of those areas that should be labelled "This area is not for storage." Personally I think they put those labels in various places to avoid a liability. If you use a little common sense in what you put down there, you are not going to hurt the pipes or start a fire. The bar with all the white wires seen in the first picture is the common ground bar. They are not hot wires. The back of the fuse box is nicely enclosed so when you run your hand across it, you do not feel a bunch of bare wires.

I have not found a good door for this space yet so I took a piece of scrap panelling that I had laying around, cut it to size and held it on with some window screen retainers.

Chirpz · 08-03-2016, 07:35 PM

While peering under the edge of the bed storage door, I spied an pretty large empty space to the right of the water tank. I sure don't like the access lid to this under-bed area. Maybe I'll find a better solution to that someday. For now though, I want to use that large space to the right. Its almost impossible to put anything there as it is.

Opening the right hand storage compartment door outside, I noticed that there is a thin panel that hides the desired compartment. With a little strong-arm work, I managed to tear out that small panel. Then I removed the vertical framing member that was in the middle, turned it on edge and screwed it to the cross framing above for extra strength up there.

I cut and capped off the wires to the compartment light and removed the light. (Maybe I'll put it back someday.) Then I repositioned the wires stapling them to the top framing member so that they are out of the way.

Results! Now when you open the right hand storage door and look to the left, you see this nice new area ready to use.

Chirpz · 08-03-2016, 10:46 PM

Since we have done a lot of "boondocking" (dry camping) in the past, battery power is important to us. LED light bulbs can save a lot of energy so I shopped Ebay and bought some nice LED bulbs to put into the existing light fixtures. I bought enough to replace every bulb!

Disappointment! With all the LED's turned on at night, the trailer was pretty dim inside. I guess the LED bulbs with the older type base that we had on our last trailer are stronger than the bulbs with the newer type base. I was browsing Etrailer.com and bought some of their replacement LED fixtures by Optronics. Each was under $15.00 so I bought 4 of them to replace the main lights that we use...the central domes, above the sink, and under the main cabinet. These fixtures don't have "bulbs" they are an array of 18 LEDs and they are bright! The pictures below do NOT do it justice. The bulb by the exit sign is a LED bulb in an ordinary fixture. The other picture is of the new fixture.... it is WAY brighter than the bulbs and it is a little more yellowish (not much.) I really recommend these fixtures if you want a cheap fix to those battery zapping standard bulbs. Now I can see very well in the FF and conserve juice too.

https://www.etrailer.com/RV-Lighting...s/RVILL34.html

Chirpz · 08-03-2016, 10:58 PM

While boondocking in Idaho 2 years ago, temperatures were in the 90's and we were suffering. We decided to get a 12 Volt fan for desperate moments and plugged it into our 12 volt outlet when needed. The fan cost us $100 bucks and I can't say I'm pleased with that but we were sweating to death. Well we kept the fan when we upgraded to the FF but I discovered that we have no 12 volt outlet. Grrrrr. So I decided to put one in.

I bought a nice 12 Volt outlet at the car parts store and mounted it above the table under the cabinets. Then I drilled a hole in the back of my new light fixture and tapped into the wires that feed the fixture to power the outlet. Next I put a small hook in the ceiling to hang the fan. I'm sure we will find other uses for the outlets too.

Chirpz · 08-03-2016, 11:04 PM

In 30,000 miles of travel and camping with our old rig, we never once wished that we had a TV set..... now we have one. I wanted to take it out and use the space for storage. She wanted to keep it just in case. I must admit that it is a very nice TV and in new condition but who needs it? I notice while towing that it falls over very easy.

I came up with a cheap, red neck, solution. Being a retired Glazier, I love silicone...ha. So I decided to use some on the TV. I made sure it was properly connected to everything and tested it too. Then I pushed it to the back of the cabinet and siliconed it in place. I think you could totally wreck the trailer and it would never fall out.

Now how do I move it if I need too..... hmmm!

Chirpz · 08-03-2016, 11:21 PM

Here are 3 small items, hardly worth mentioning, but since I can....

A coat hanger now graces the bathroom door, wife's idea. I'm not too sure about it. Purchased at Ace Hardware

A wire rack is parked behind the sink. It is held firmly in place using "Commander" hangers that you can get at Ace. There is one type that you can snap over a wire and then attach to the wall. I used screws instead of their double stick backing that never works. The wire rack came from Bed Bath and Beyond.

Deciding were to put the mirror was a tough one. We were not thrilled with any place but finally decided on the refrigerator door. It is held on with professional foam glazing tape and is very secure.