Amputating my 3124KS' elec. power cord!
With what seems to be a little lull in the posting of new threads on our TM forum, I decided to show how I amputated the electrical power cord of my older 3124KS to make it more manageable.
For a few years I've been mildly irritated whenever I've had to connect or disconnect my 1999 3124KS TM to electrical power. The approx. 30' long power cord, you see, is stored in the lower part of an interior cabinet near the front of the trailer. After raising the shells, I pull the cord out through its flap-covered, access hole. Because it's coiled inside the crowded cabinet, it often takes quite a bit of pulling to extricate the cord. Pushing the cord back in also takes much effort since I'll have to push and twist the thick cord until it somehow coils itself in the cabinet. The dirt and grime that's accumulated on the cord must also be wiped off before it's pushed back in through the access hole - I don't want all that dirt inside the cabinet. This is the same cabinet, by the way, in which the battery, water tank, water pump, and converter are located. The first photo shows the crowded conditions inside the lower part of the cabinet.
I decided, therefore, to amputate the cord and leave only 4' of it attached to the converter. I installed a 30 amp. twist-lock connector on the end of this short piece. I put a mating twist-lock connector on the remaining 25' length of the cord. If you decide to price these 30 amp. twist-lock connectors at your Home Depot or Lowes, don't faint - over $50 for the pair! Detaching most of the cord now allows me to store the longer part in an outside cabinet.
The following photo shows a guide-retainer piece I built to keep the short section of cord just inside the access hole. I glued it to the top of the water tank. This piece may not be necessary but I don't mind building things. The next few photos show my connector puller, cord's short length pulled outside, connectors locked together outside and then pushed back inside the access hole. The final photo shows the mated connectors sitting on top of the tank in the now uncluttered cabinet.
One surprising discovery I made while manipulating the cord inside the cabinet was that there were several screw points protruding as much as a quarter inch through the wood partition in the top of this cabinet. I received several superficial cuts on a hand from running it across these screw points. In examining the detached piece of cord, I noticed that there also were several superficial cuts in its outer cover. Pulling the cord out of and pushing it back into the cabinet apparently subjected its insulating cover to being lacerated by the screws' points. This is not a good feature of storing the power cord in this location!
Credit must go to Bill, one of our electrical gurus, for giving me electrical safety pointers when I made this modification. Thanks for your helpful advice, Bill. Before making this modification I gave a few hours of thought to snaking the power cord all the way back to my TM's rear bumper - so that I might have access to it even when the TM is folded down. I gave up that idea because it seemed a daunting task to snake the cord or electrical wires almost 20' back, through some unseen recesses, to the bumper.
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