Our New 2922KB

[BaconLover]

Here are pictures of our new TM. You'll notice that it doesn't have the typical graphics because the person that ordered this originally asked TM not to put them on there.

[Shane826]

Very nice. Congratulations! So that last picture is the best explanation I’ve ever seen as to why there is such a gap between the bathroom wall and the side wall... So you don’t have to take the shower curtain down! Ours isn’t up, we’ve never used it.

[Bill]

Very nice-looking unit. To my surprise, I find that I don't miss the graphics.

Like mine, it appears that your unit doesn't have the backup lights wired in. The factory assured me that they would be doing so in the future. But in the meantime, I'm trying to figure out how to snake the wires from behind the refrig (where they are capped off) to the rear wall where the tail lights are. If I can do it, I'll change out the taillight fixtures to ones with backup lights. If you come up with an idea, let me know, please.

Bill

[Kidkraz]

I see there are no vents on the front shell, interesting. Good looking rig and I agree with Bill on the missing graphics.

[Shane826]

Bill- Disconnect one of the wires to each tail light at the refrigerator. Attach new tail light wires and a reverse light wire to each disconnected wire. SLOWLY pull the wires from the tail light end, which will then pull the new wires with it. Viola, you now have back up wires.

This may be even easier to do in two sections; one through the rear shell and one down the lift arm to the refrigerator cavity.

[Shane826]

Kidkraz- I think they are now putting the fan on one side of the A/C and a vent on the other. They tried to get away from the vents since a hole in the roof is always a hole in the roof. But folks really wanted an extra vent, so that’s the design now...

[Larryjb]

Where is the furnace intake/exhaust? That I couldn't find.

[Bill]

In the first pic, it appears to be just forward of the entry door, which matches the floor plan for the 2922KB.

Bill

[BaconLover]

That is correct - the furnace vent is behind where the entry door latches to when it’s open all the way. The furnace is under the dinette seat by the door. Custom RV said not to leave the door open when running the furnace since it will delaminate/warp the siding. At first I thought it was a weird place to put the vent, but then my husband mentioned that assuming it’s cold enough to run the heater, you probably wouldn’t have the entry door wide open!

Oh, and I ended up having to move the shower curtain after I took these pictures - it got in the way a little bit of the shells closing, so I just ended up laying it on top of the folder bathroom walls.

We had asked Custom RV whether TMs came with back up lights or not. Scott said that they don’t include them which seems weird/not as safe to me. So, at least as of July last year when this one was was manufactured, they didn’t do back up lights.

I also got new locks keyed to the entry door and installed then this weekend for the baggage compartment doors and the outside shower door (which took a bit of effort to get in there, but it seems to be working fine now). Instead of having three keys now, I have the one for the trailer since I will now have plenty of other keys for the things like the hitch lock, coupler lock, etc.

Also, just because I was curious, I took pictures from inside the closed trailer. I was curious to see how much space there was. We didn’t end up closing the outer front shell since just closing the back made was enough to get the idea. Let me know if anyone is interested in seeing those pictures, and I’ll post them. I also took some quick video as well!

[Shane826]

Yes post the pictures please!

[Bill]

Bill- Disconnect one of the wires to each tail light at the refrigerator. Attach new tail light wires and a reverse light wire to each disconnected wire. SLOWLY pull the wires from the tail light end, which will then pull the new wires with it. Viola, you now have back up wires.

This may be even easier to do in two sections; one through the rear shell and one down the lift arm to the refrigerator cavity.Shane -

That seems possible - or at least nothing else seems likely. I would do it in two sections, as you suggested. My concern is that there may be sharp edges somewhere in the path that would cut the new wires as they go through. (The original wires may be protected in a sleeve.)

And one thing I learned long ago, when I was pulling new wires through residential stud walls. Don't pull a wire with another wire! If it breaks while you are pulling, you have no recovery. Instead, use the original wire to pull TWO strong strings. Mono-filament nylon is good, because it is strong, slippery, and very flexible. As you feed the strings in, be sure they go in side-by-side, and don't get twisted. If the pull gets jammed part way through, you can use these strings to pull the original wire back. Once you get the two strings through, immediately tie off one of them on both ends, and use the other to pull the new wires. The tied-off string is your recovery string. If the first string breaks, use the second one to pull TWO new strings, then continue as before.

When I have finished the job, I generally leave the recovery string in place, bundled up and out of sight. Who knows when it might come in handy again.

Wish me luck.

Bill

[Shane826]

Laid in a channel? Are you saying the wires are in place when the walls are built? That would be pretty interesting.

Someone on the Facebook page said they were told or they saw at the factory that they just use a hot poker to melt a channel through the walls to pull wires as needed. Let me see if I can find the post and get some details.

[Bill]

I also got new locks keyed to the entry door and installed then this weekend for the baggage compartment doors and the outside shower door. Instead of having three keys now, I have the one for the trailerCan you tell me more about this? My trailer has two locks on the entry door - they have different blanks, so neither key will fit in the other lock - and then, of course, there are the infamous CH751 keys on all the other locks. Did you manage to get all of these locks on one key? I would love to do that.

Bill

[commodor47]

On my outer shell, the 12 volt power wires run down the middle of the ceiling, under the white, plastic trim piece, to operate the ceiling lights - and the lights under the ceiling cabinets. The white plastic cove corner trim piece (street side) where the wall meets the ceiling, also carries the the TV mast coax cable and the cabinet speakers for the radio. I don't know from experience, but assume something similar happens for inner shell. The center ceiling trim piece probably carries the 12 volt wires for the ceiling lights. I assume the street side, corner cove molding piece, where the wall meets the ceiling, probably carries the 12 volt wires for the tail lights. There is a horizontal white plastic piece running along the tail light wall just low enough to probably carry the 12 volt wires across to the tail lights. I haven't pulled the inner shell white trim pieces to verify my assumptions. Perhaps someone else has? If my assumption is correct, the factory would only need to cut a channel in the ceiling foam to reach any ceiling fixtures thereby eliminating the need for imbedded channels in the walls.

Dick

[BaconLover]

Can you tell me more about this? My trailer has two locks on the entry door - they have different blanks, so neither key will fit in the other lock - and then, of course, there are the infamous CH751 keys on all the other locks. Did you manage to get all of these locks on one key? I would love to do that.

Bill

I would be happy to! First off, our entry door lock came with both locks using the same G numbered key from Global Link (purple handled key). Before we bought this trailer, I happened to come across this website, https://www.rvlocksandmore.com/ because I was looking for a way to key alike all of the locks. That site had all of these ones that can be keyed to the G purple keys. It just happens that the entry door latch that TM used on our trailer uses those G keys, so I was excited that I might be able to swap out the other locks. And it turns out, the latch has a sticker that says if you ever lose your keys, go to this exact same website for replacements.

So! I did a little research - there is a great video on the etrailer.com that shows you how to measure for replacement locks. I was originally going to get them there, but they can’t key alike different models of locks (see the first review video here - https://www.etrailer.com/RV-Locks/Global-Link/295-000003.html). It tells you how to measure for the replacement locks. The baggage locks on mine were 7/8” and the outside shower door is 5/8”.

I bought two of these in 7/8”:
https://www.rvlocksandmore.com/CLB-Cam-Lock-Barrel

And one of these:
https://www.rvlocksandmore.com/Hatch-Key-Lock-key-Ready_3
For the shower door which after using the arm that comes with it, makes the lock work for the 5/8” cam lock.

All three, I had them key to the same key which matches my entry door.

They also sell replacement entry door latches, so you could just order a new one, choose one of the G numbered keys and then buy the above three locks and make sure you have them keyed to the same number. That entry latch is kinda pricey though(I think it was like $45) but it might be worth it to get one key for all. I believe that I read somewhere that you can’t just replace the locks in the entry door latch - you can “rent” a key that helps you change out those locks, but I don’t know if you have to be a dealer or locksmith to be able to do that. I was gonna try to do that but again, we lucked out with the locks being keyed the same on the entry door latch.

It was super easy to replace the baggage compartment locks. Again, just watch the etrailer video. The shower door took some effort. The replacement latch had some metal wings on the side that made it really hard to push through. The wings hold the lock in place instead of using a big hex nut, so you just have to squeeze the wings down with some small pliers as your shoving it through the existing hole, metal “shower door” labeled cover and the plastic backplate on the inside of the door.

I hope that all makes sense!

[BaconLover]

Yes post the pictures please!

Here you go! I'm starting with the where the kitchen sink is in the 2922KB and going clockwise - the pictures are named with the direction. I was sitting basically in the middle in front of the kitchen sink, but I moved around a bit to get things in frame. Oh, and just in case you are wondering what that little beige thing is hanging off of the sink cabinet - it's a collapsible wastebasket that I found on Amazon (https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B081R81RXH/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s05?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

There was quite a lot of space in there, and I had the hanging cabinets over by the dinette table still (and a one of those 4 in 1 RV sleeping bags rolled up on top. The last two pictures were an attempt to capture the amount of space above the back king bed. The one thing to keep in mind is that we have a 1 inch thick mattress topper below the blue fitted sheet, so I measured that there was still about a little over an inch above the bed of space. I should have used my tape measure in the picture, but my husband was rushing me because he wanted to go do something else. :-)

Anyway, I'm impressed with the amount of space in the closed down trailmanor. I took pictures of the entry door from the inside because I want to figure out some kind of shoe storage thing that won't get in the way. It appears that there is quite enough room for a cargo net or I found these crappy little stick on shoe holders from Amazon that I might try (https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07D4FTPNV/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_image_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1).

Any suggestions on how you all deal with shoe storage would be welcome! Oh, and I'll take a picture of my makeshift foam bumpers that I am using on the sharp metal piece that is on the seam in the ceiling between the two shells in the middle (by the AC). Sadly, I didn't try my little contraption before my 6'4" husband hit it in the middle of the night and got a pretty good gash on his forehead. Score 1 point for the TM.

[Bill]

Aha! Your first picture shows something I have been concerned about - the water heater control panel in the new units. In mine, the switches were labeled strangely (see first pic), and didn't seem to function as the labels indicated. As I played around, trying to figure out what the switches actually do, I burned out the water heater element. Annoying.

I don't know if TM changed the labels as they made more panels - they told me they weren't going to continue to use it at all. That's too bad - I liked it in general, and suggested new wording to the factory. I made up a panel with new labeling (see second pic) that seems better to me. It is not a work of art, and I'll do better next time. But it will look better when the switches are snapped in and their skirts cover up the mess around the openings.

If yours is like mine, be aware that the ON-OFF switch on the water heater body itself, mentioned in dozens of posts on this forum, may no longer be there.

Bill

[BaconLover]

Oh yeah, that water heater panel is so confusing! So the way that Scott from Custom RV told us, the on/off is just for using the water heater with propane. The weird thing is that “gas” is blacked out on the second switch but “electric” is not (I can post a better close up) as the manual states, there’s this whole process that you have to do to use the water heater on electricity including turning on switches outside and inside. I forget actually, and you just reminded me that I wanted to re-read that section in the manual. Using gas just seems much simpler than the electricity.

[Shane826]

BaconLover- My TM doesn’t have the electric switch inside, only outside. But I 100% agree... We just use propane. One less thing to forget.

Bill- I seem to recall many moons ago you said you could no longer use the water heater on propane and electric at the same time. Seeing the OEM face plate, I can see why that would appear to be the case. Now seeing your custom plate, is that still the case? Or can you flip both those switches and run both modes?

[Bill]

Shane -

Absolutely you can run both at the same time! The manual plainly states that doing so is a good idea, increasing the recovery rate.

Yes, when I made the comment about not being able to use both at the same time, it was when my new TM was brand new to me. It was based on that misleading control panel. I should go back, find that comment, and change it. I asked the factory why they had set it up that way (one or the other, but not both), and the answer was basically "Huh?" Since then, I sent them a picture of my suggested panel, and they told me they aren't using that panel at all any more, and had changed back to the Suburban OEM control panel. Bottom line, I think there is a surprising mix of panels out there.

BaconLover -

The Suburban water heater comes from Suburban with a built-in rocker switch that controls power to the electric element. Take a look at the blue arrow in this picture -
https://www.trailmanorowners.com/forum/album.php?albumid=8&pictureid=447
This switch is accessible only from outside the TM, which is a bit unhandy, and I don't think many folks liked it. The factory pays attention to these things, which pleases me. They decided to experiment, removing that switch from the water heater and relocating it inside, on the control panel. It's an idea I like, and I'm pleased that they were willing to try it out. But in my opinion, and mine only, they fumbled the control panel layout, then reached the wrong conclusion about its utility, and returned the switch to the original location. My preference would have been for them to leave the original switch in the original location, add an inside switch in series with it. Over the years, many of our members have done exactly that, and have reported that they like the result. If the factory then corrected the labels on the control panel, it would be a nice assembly.

Scott at Custom RV was exactly right about your control panel. One switch controls the electric side only, and the other controls the gas side only (which is why the word "ELECTRIC" was blacked out). Take another look at my post #17 above. Your description matches my first pic. You need a plate like the second pic.

So anyway, my guess is that the confusion you are seeing is because you are seeing a mixed bag of instructions for the old setup and the new setup.

Bill

[BaconLover]

Thanks Bill. The kids want to sleep in the trailer again, so we’ll set everything up again tomorrow, and I’ll check my setup. I’m pretty sure on my panel, Gas is blacked out and Electric is not. But yeah, I saw some other mistakes in the manual (like it only referred to a 20 gallon freshwater tank and the original Thefford toilet), so I’ll take it with a grain of salt that I have some mixed up stuff. I did manually rewrite down what Scott told us, so I’ll look at that again as well.

Did you get a chance to see my post about the baggage locks? Just wondering if that made sense and if you can do the swap out or not.

[us.beach.girl50]

Here are pictures of our new TM. You'll notice that it doesn't have the typical graphics because the person that ordered this originally asked TM not to put them on there.Congratulations! I hope to find our new to us TM soon!

Sent from my SM-G781U using Tapatalk

[Kidkraz]

If I can suggest, take pictures of all your appliance info tags. Once I got my rig home I opened it up and took pictures of just about everything. It helps to have a quick picture/reference which has serial numbers and model info when you have to search for info on said product. I read someones post on the trailer axel repair they had to do. They were not sure of the model or serial number since it was an old TM. After reading that hick up, I went out and got a shot of the axel product tag, so I have the serial number if I had to get a say no-adjust brakes for the rig. It can also help for insurance needs.

[BaconLover]

Good idea! I also wrote down all of my serial numbers on a page that came with the TrailManor for the appliances.

[BaconLover]

So we finally checked that water heater switch panel by the kitchen sink...there’s nothing hooked up to the middle switch (the one that said Gas and Electric with Gas blacked out with a marker) at all. So good news is we have any extra switch that we could repurpose. It looks like the left switch (that says On and Off) is the on/off switch for the propane ignition for the water heater and the electric on/off is only available through the switch outside. So I guess that’s how the 2021’s work. I can have both propane and electricity to heat the water.

[Bill]

As the pictures in my earlier posts show, I have made up a new panel with two switches and correct labels. On my rig, there is no switch on the water heater itself. My plan in the next few days is to buy another switch and put it into the empty hole in the water heater itself, wiring it in series with the switch on the panel. I can then control the heater from inside or outside. Fortunately, the exact same switch is available from Amazon and others, so it will be a simple job to snap it into place.

Why do this? An inside switch is real handy, especially if I arrive at a campground after dark or in the rain. But if the inside switch is the only switch, it is too easy to flip it on during setup, before the tank is filled, and burn out the element. And when I am closing the camper down, draining the water heater is an outside job, and an outside switch is more easily remembered.

In earlier days of the Forum, several of our members added a second indoor switch, in series with the outdoor switch (it is easy to do) for exactly this reason, and were pleased with it.

Bill

[2004 Maners]

Very Nice !! In the 7th picture below the towel rack there is a brown rectangle thing . Ours is missing and TM hasn't responded to my email yet after a few months. Hoping you can give me a clue what it is. Thanks in advance !!

[Bill]

In front of the sink, down near the floor? It is the CO and propane detector unit. You should have one!

Bill

[Stephene1219]

Is that an air mattress on the kin bed in the last picture

[Shane826]

Bill- My remodel doesn’t have backup lights either. Another thought I had to add them was to just install an LED strip in the rear bumper, and run the wires underneath to the fridge compartment. The wiring is there; my rear view camera was originally wired to the backup circuit but I moved it to the running light circuit to have rear view all the time.

[SteveD]

I was wondering the same thing about the mattress. We got a 2 in topper and can't get the trailer to close with it in place. We have a 2022 2922ks.

[Kmikesell]

I was wondering the same thing about the mattress. We got a 2 in topper and can't get the trailer to close with it in place. We have a 2022 2922ks.

We have an older 2720 and a 2" topper. ours closes with about 3/4 to spare.

[BaconLover]

Is that an air mattress on the kin bed in the last picture

Sorry! I didn’t realize that anyone had relit my posting from a while back! No, that’s just the stock king mattress with a blue flannel sheet on it. FYI - I had a few months where I tried to use these latex toppers (two 2-inch where one was firm and the other was a medium or soft (tried both) instead of the stock mattress. We ended up going back to the stock mattress and have slept fine on it for the last 4 months. It was weird because when we first got the TM, both my husband and I had a horrible time sleeping on the stock mattress!