RV Mods we Made
RV modifications we made - good, bad or just goofy.
This week on the StressLess Camping RV Podcast, we share the modifications we made on each of our Rockwood Mini Lite travel trailers, to make them more usable for our style of camping and traveling.
Will modifications affect the value of your RV and what hacks are our favorite - and what did we goof up?
Other places to hear the podcast
Mentioned on this episode
Our favorite way to make the RV bed easy - the RV Superbag
Our article and podcast about GasStop propane safety upgrade for RVs
Our story and video about the RVLock - a safety way to secure your RV door
Checking in with Hughes and the Hughes Power Watchdog RV power protector
Our new Ghost Bed RV replacement mattress
RV refrigerators and how we upgraded our 12 volt RV refrigerator
We love these LED blackout stickers
Installing the MORryde Safe-T-Rail entry handle in our RV
Our review of the B&W Continuum weight distribution hitch
Looking at the new MagneShade travel trailer windshield protector and sun shade
Installing the Wack-O RV air conditioner silencer
How we get Internet on the road and the mods we made for Starlink
If you’re confused about solar, battery power or just want to upgrade your RV we have found the solutions from ABC Upfitters are both reliable and exceptional.
We have a podcast episode and video where you can learn more here.
There’s still time to enter to win the Alliance Delta travel trailer from Liquified - while there’s no purchase necessary you’ll likely want to stock up while you’re at it.
Automated transcript of StressLess Camping RV podcast episode 306
Tony
This week on the Stressless Camping RV podcast
Peggy
We are gonna tell you about the mods that we have done on all three models of our Rockwood mini lights.
Tony
Whether they're really great mods or some that are questionable, how do they affect your resale value, and is this something you wanna do to your RV? Join us as we talk RV mods this week on the podcast.
Peggy
Don't forget to like and share. Thank you for joining us for episode 306. Wish we could have a campfire.
Tony
It's snowing, and I'm Tony. And I'm Peggy. We're two RV industry veterans who travel
Peggy
part time. Not right this minute, but we usually travel part time in a Rockwood mini light.
Tony
Looking to share big adventures and help you with great tips
Peggy
Tricks.
Tony
And discounts. And, uh, we are coming to you from snowy Pagosa Springs, Colorado. Yeah.
Peggy
We're on a little vacation with family, and so we're not in our mini light. But we wanted to tell you about some of the things we've done to our mini lights.
Tony
Yes. Yes. Lights. Mini lights. One of the things that we have done is we use liquefied as our RV tank treatment.
Tony
And until the end of this month, in the May 2025
Peggy
Right.
Tony
You can still enter to win an Alliance Delta travel trailer from Liquefied. Now there's no cost. You can just go on liquefied.com and fill out a survey and that will give you entries into the contest. We tested a number of RV tank treatments. Yeah.
Tony
And we spoke with our friend Joshua who tested all these treatments. Mhmm. And we spoke with the founder of Liquified Math. And, uh, you you can see all of that, but we use Liquified. So at the Liquified website, you can also get your own Liquefied RV Holding Tank Treatment.
Tony
It's an all natural product that, uh, it really just works. And there's also gray tank treatment
Peggy
Yeah.
Tony
And toilet bowl cleaner.
Peggy
Toilet cleaner. So if you use the link, you can register to try to win the travel trailer, but you can also save 10% on your first liquefied order. Try it.
Tony
Yeah. It's it's good stuff. I mean, we have had our trailer now since November, put 9,000 miles on it, and our holding tank shows empty when it's empty.
Peggy
When it's empty. Amazing.
Tony
That's the measure.
Peggy
Always think of Matt when you poop. So we are on our Fourth. Third version of Rockwood Mini Lite. Our fourth actual Rockwood Mini Lite, you probably have heard the story, but the one we only had for a few months got rear ended and totaled. And so we'll just kind of talk about that model.
Peggy
We won't necessarily specifically each one of the two.
Tony
Right. But our whole adventure started as we were shopping for our Versus We we spent a year looking at our Versus or more, and finally settled on a Rockwood Mini Light 19 o five, which
Peggy
you don't settled.
Tony
No. No.
Peggy
That's right. Finally decided
Tony
on. Right. Right. It wasn't a settle. It was a it was a clear and obvious choice.
Tony
Uh, and we bought that trailer, and it was a small single axle, no slide trailer. It was a great trailer.
Peggy
Mhmm.
Tony
Uh, it had a Murphy bed, And the first mod, you know, we're like, oh, we're not gonna mod this trailer.
Peggy
Well, we didn't even we were so new to travel trailers really. We didn't even know the word mod. Let's face it. Okay. We just said, you buy a travel trailer, you use the travel trailer.
Peggy
Then we thought, you know, maybe there's some things that don't aren't exactly perfect for us that we could change.
Tony
The first thing we did, that trailer when you when it had a Murphy bed in the front, and it had a jackknife sofa. So the jackknife sofa would kind of fold out and flat and the murphy bed would come down on top of it. Right. Well, that jackknife sofa had you know, there's obviously a mechanism to make that folding stuff work. And, that mechanism was so close to the arm rest of the couch, that it would actually kinda scratch the couch and ultimately ripped it.
Tony
So I filed a warranty, or we filed a warranty claim. They replaced the couch, brand new couch, and the new couch did the same thing, and I thought, gosh this is frustrating. So we started a Facebook group. Cause I'm like, where do we find answers? So we started this little Facebook group which grew to, I don't know, 12 or 13,000 people so far.
Peggy
12,000 now. But the whole question was like, what do you who knows what to do about this to fix this?
Tony
Yeah. And so, ultimately, the first mod we did was we just took the darn couch out altogether.
Peggy
So we used camp chairs, and we set up our little living room office space, and the camp chairs would fold down, lay on the floor when we wanted to put the Murphy bed down. So it really worked well for us.
Tony
Funny thing is, I took it out, and by then I was working at the RV dealership, And I was we said, uh, I said to Peggy, I'm like, well, if we take out the couch, maybe I could sell the couch. And I just did.
Peggy
And Peggy said, well, let's put it in the garage for a little while, try a couple of camping trips, and then decide if we're gonna sell the couch. So the next day, Tony took the couch to work and sold it. Yeah. My couch. Good thing, I didn't say I hated it, because then he would have to buy a new couch.
Tony
Yeah. So we have notes that we're referring to if you see us looking. The next thing we did, you know, RV mattresses are not the best, and then that folding the nice thing about the way Rockwood does their murphy beds is it's a solid platform. So a lot of these RVs with murphy beds you have to fold, and it's
Peggy
I don't really have any desire ever to have something with a folded mattress.
Tony
No. Because because that
Peggy
matter that fold is gonna hit right in the wrong part of my body no matter what.
Tony
Another early change we did was we just got a mattress pad.
Peggy
Mhmm.
Tony
And then we went to quartzite, and we found the RV Superbad because
Peggy
Yeah. Making a Murphy bed Well, making any RV bed, come on, if anyone out there hasn't done it, you're in for quite a treat. Uh, it is not easy 97 and a half percent of the time to reach, like, the top corners of the bed. And people, you know, they'll pull the mattress out and get up around the top corner. Fine.
Peggy
But it's way big workout. So what we have done, we have an RV super bag. It's kind of like a big double sleeping bag. So it just sits on top. You don't have to it does zip up, so you can zip yourself in and out and zip it to make it look nice, but you don't have to zip it to anything.
Peggy
There are other brands where you zip the sheets to the mattress cover or whatever, But then you still have to remake that every time it's laundry day. We rip the sheets out of the Velcro. Yeah. And I mean, it's kinda fun.
Tony
The detail of this super bag is so good that even the Velcros are rounded so they don't poke you. Yeah. They they've done and they make them here in The US, and the quality, it's so good. We still have that same one.
Peggy
Right. We bought in, like, 02/2019. What I do what we do now is we have one single sheet that we cover the mattress to make yes. So you can't really see the mattress. You see The
Tony
mattress itself. Right.
Peggy
Yeah. The actual mattress. And that just stays on. You know? Maybe once or twice a year because we don't touch it.
Tony
Right.
Peggy
So once or twice a year, I take it off and wash the dust out and put it back on. But that's how often we have to put sheets on a mattress.
Tony
Yeah. It
Peggy
Not very
Tony
often at all. And it's very comfortable. There's a winter and a summer size. So anyway, we're going on and on about this. We have other mods too, but, uh, the RV super bag was one of the early mods, and it was just It's great.
Tony
Yeah. I I always keep recommending
Peggy
Yeah.
Tony
That thing because it's just good. Oh, you redid the valances and curtains.
Peggy
So when we had the first trailer, the '19 o five, we my friend Beverly had given me some fabric that was had like woody cars and palm trees and stuff and it was cool and you know it's a rock wood. So woody cars in the rock wood worked pretty well. So I took this fabric and I made valances to cover the valances that were in there. Everything is kind of brown and kind of plain, and that's intentional by the RV industry because that way if you want color, you can add color. But if you buy something that's red and woody cars and you don't like red or woody cars, you're kind of out of luck.
Peggy
Yeah. Right? So I covered all the valances over the windows, and then I made a couple of pillow covers. And I didn't, you know, I didn't make pillows. I just made covers to cover the pillows that came with the RV.
Tony
I think we still have them.
Peggy
We do still have them. It added a pop of color. It wasn't a permanent change, and that was that's really good. You know, sometimes you do a mod, and it's like something only you would like.
Tony
Yeah. And it
Peggy
makes try to sell that trailer or that RV at some point, you've done something that you can't sell because nobody else wants that.
Tony
We'll get into those.
Peggy
We will.
Tony
But, yeah, it can I mean we had talked about that this could affect resale value, and it really can if you do significant mods, especially I've seen people paint the cabinets that sort of thing?
Peggy
Mhmm.
Tony
I mean RVs are sort of intended to be neutral to appeal to the most to not offend the most people. Yeah.
Peggy
I mean
Tony
that's the bottom line. Right. And if you really do something polarizing which we have done, uh, it can make it more difficult to sell because you just choose from a smaller pool of people Mhmm. And it can affect your resale value.
Peggy
So the valance covers that I made could easily be removed. I Velcroed them on. Yeah. So they were good for us, and if the next person didn't like that print or that color, they could just pull the Velcro off and have the brown for them to do whatever they wanted.
Tony
Yeah. They could make their own. I hate the swooshy swirls on RVs. I don't I don't know why they're so prevalent, but I did I don't know if you remember I started taking the stickers off the outside of that trailer.
Peggy
Did you?
Tony
And you know if you wait a long time to do that, the underlying material can fade differently.
Peggy
Right. So
Tony
So you see it's like when you go you know like somebody's been smoking for twenty years in a house and you take the paintings off and you're like oh.
Peggy
Yeah. We uh started we thought oh we're just gonna take all these stickers off and we took one sticker off and we never got any
Tony
further. No. I think also our objective we had considered because we used to go to a lot of car shows we had considered that fake wood that you put on station wagons from the seventies or whatever.
Peggy
Right? Yeah.
Tony
You're gonna try to put the bottom of the trailer with that and you can buy that woody sticker stuff for old cars, you know, there's reproductions of it and we had actually considered and boy talk about that would affect the resale value.
Peggy
But it's okay.
Tony
On Rockwoods and, uh, you know, brunch or other brands, there's like a rail outside the trailer, and they used to include a barbecue griddle, like a propane griddle, and a little table, and now they include a flat top griddle, and a little table.
Peggy
Mhmm.
Tony
And that 19 o five being as small as it was, I thought, gosh, it'd be great to have a little counter extension.
Peggy
Yeah. Just a little bit of extra. We literally had like two four inch segments of countertop. Yeah.
Tony
It was tiny tiny tiny.
Peggy
So so we thought, well that table that we can hang outside, why couldn't we hang it inside and make a countertop extension?
Tony
Yeah, so we did, we went on Amazon and found that rail, and I reinforced the back side of the cabinet, because that's mostly decorative right? Yeah. So we put reinforcement back there, put that rail in the countertop, and bing bang boom it worked out perfectly.
Peggy
Now when that counter extension was on of course, we had to take it off in order to put the Murphy bed down, because there wasn't enough clearance between the bed, the foot of the bed, and the end Yeah.
Tony
Counter. But it was easy enough
Peggy
to do. Nice to have when we were trying to prepare a meal.
Tony
Yeah. Uh, at that point, the little Facebook group started growing and growing, and Rockwood started to reach out to us and we started to reach out to them. Because I was honestly concerned I'm like am I infringing on their trademark or blah blah and no. And so we started to talk with Rockwood about trailers and RVs in that group, and and they use that group for a lot of market research because there's 12,000 people there who have Rockwoods and Flagstaffs. Smart people.
Peggy
Yeah. So in 2021 we took our first really long road trip, and we did the entirety of Route 66. Plus, we went to Indiana and visited Rockwood and toured the plant and all kinds of stuff. And we realized that we, you know, we have kind of transformed from weekend campers to road trippers, road tripping people. I don't wanna I don't wanna step on any more trademarks.
Tony
Oh, my.
Peggy
Now we're doing longer trips. We were gone, I think, six or eight weeks on that trip, and we realized that the 19 o five was kind of too small for something more than a long weekend.
Tony
Yeah. That's true. It was definitely a weekend camper. And it was a great weekend camper but we decided we might be interested in something larger. But another mod we did at the dealership we would sell uh, Flagstaff ePros which are the small versions of the Rockwood or Flagstaff product line.
Tony
Uh, typically single axle, but now not always. And one of the things they came with is this thing called the jacket bike rack. Oh. And that you basically unscrew the tongue jack, and you screw this jacket bike rack, and it fits kind of over the tongue, uh, jack. Well, I sold a trailer to a dude who he didn't want that thing, and so he's like, no, you just take it off and get rid of it.
Tony
I know how to get rid of it. You put it on our trailer.
Peggy
You traded it for a couch. No.
Tony
I sold the
Peggy
house. I know. So we got this jacket and we put it on our tongue jack, and we were able to hang bicycles on the front of the trailer between the truck and the trailer itself.
Tony
Yeah. That was before we had ebikes. Those were Right. Just like proper bicycles.
Peggy
So that was like the beach cruiser and things like that. Now we didn't always take our bikes on trips. No. It admittedly, it's kind of a a high reach. There's a little bit of a high reach for me to put a bicycle up on, you know, because it's up high.
Peggy
But we didn't decide to remove the jacket. What we did was made very good use of
Tony
it
Peggy
to hold solar panels.
Tony
Yeah. We did. It was a great solar panel holder upper, and that's when we started to get into solar. Uh, we had, you know, those that 80 watt, uh, Go Power solar panel and two AGM, well first it was flooded batteries. And then in
Peggy
the beginning we had flooded batteries like everybody did.
Tony
Yeah.
Peggy
Right? We got the AGM batteries and we would put that folded solar panel up on the jacket, and it was right there by the batteries to plug it in. It was a great solution. So even even after we stopped using it for bicycles, we still had a great use for that.
Tony
Yeah. Another mod we made to this trailer, and every trailer since, has been to put an RV lock keyless entry. Yeah. How did why did we do that? I don't
Peggy
Oh, let's see. Why did we do that indeed? Well, we had misplaced a the second set of RV keys. We couldn't find the set anywhere. So we had one set, fine.
Peggy
We had one set. We came home from a trip one time. I couldn't figure this story out, but now that I figured it out, I can tell it all as one story. I had taken the hitch pin, you know, we took the hitch off and the hitch pin, I laid on the bumper, carried the hitch into the garage and went in the house. A couple weeks later, when I was looking for the RV key oh, and and by the way, when we had it parked, we always locked both the handle and the deadbolt.
Peggy
Yeah. I don't know if you know this, but RV dealers have, like, a master key. They can open pretty much any door, not
Tony
The latch. But not just the latch. Yeah.
Peggy
So I had locked everything. A couple weeks later, I went to look for the RV keys to go inside for something, couldn't find them anywhere. Well what had happened was I never did take that hitch pin and the keys off the bumper. So when I drove off to go to work the next day, somewhere between home and work is probably still a set of keys and a new PIN. So Yeah.
Peggy
Unfortunately, we now we have zero keys, and even our dealer friend that has a master key can't open it because the deadbolt
Tony
is gone. Dealer friend, nothing I had, but
Peggy
master key. No. You had already quit your job.
Tony
Oh, okay.
Peggy
Tony basically had to drill out the old block.
Tony
I was shocked at how quickly I was able to do this. The standard latches on RVs are pretty cheap, and so the RV lock is not only very easy to install, but it's a significant upgrade of the lock and latch on an RV. So if you're thinking about, oh should I get one of those RV locks? Yeah. Yeah.
Peggy
Yeah. You should.
Tony
Do so.
Peggy
And we've done that as Tony said on all the RV's since then.
Tony
Something we've also done to every one of our trailers, uh, is we put command hook
Peggy
Oh yeah.
Tony
Command hooks on the wall for hats.
Peggy
Mhmm.
Tony
And I you know, you always wonder do they stick and are they easy enough to remove? Uh, yes and yes. Sure. Yeah. So that's been good.
Peggy
Uh, something we also did from the very start, and we've transferred it to every RV because it's not kind of a permanent mod. But the gas stop that we put on the propane tanks, they kind of help monitor sort of. They're not super accurate, but they kind of help you monitor how full your tank is, but they also stop gas oddly enough being called GasStop. If there becomes a leak in the line somewhere, they will cut off the line, you know, the gas from the propane tank.
Tony
Yeah. We we have an interview with GasStop that you might wanna check out it. Another thing we recommend as is, uh, we bought a Hughes Power Watchdog, um, surge suppressor. Well, I don't like to call them surge suppressors anymore because most of the trouble isn't surges as much as low voltage which can kill motors like air conditioner motors and fridge motors. Uh, so we bought a Hughes Power Watchdog, uh, energy management system.
Peggy
Yeah. Energy management system or EMS.
Tony
Yeah.
Peggy
That can that, you know, covers all the different all the different electrical problems you might have. So when we know we're buying a new rig, we put the gas stop and the hues in the truck or whatever so that we have it for the next, you know, the first thing we have on the new trailer.
Tony
Yep. You know, there's a thing that we, not all of us, but
Peggy
It happens. A lot
Tony
of us too.
Peggy
To a lot of people.
Tony
You have a trailer, you talk to Orin, you see our towing calculator, and you realize a Nissan Frontier isn't the best choice for towing the 19 o five. It was okay. It could pull it as a lot of people say, but it was overloaded for cargo carrying. So we bought a bigger truck.
Peggy
So we bought a Ram fifteen hundred.
Tony
Yep.
Peggy
As I said, we kind of we're we're kind of leading up to this, but we went on that long trip and realized the 19 o five isn't really enough for these long travel road trips, and the 1,500 could actually handle a bigger trailer. All that leads up to the fact that also the 19 o five, uh, suffered an injury.
Tony
Oh, yeah.
Peggy
So
Tony
Yeah. We split the frame.
Peggy
The the frame of the travel trailer got broken, and the insurance company totaled it. And we weren't actually able to take it on any more road trips. No. And as Tony said, we had started chatting with Rockwood back and forth. We had already thought about getting a bigger rig.
Peggy
We had the
Tony
bigger truck.
Peggy
We had a bigger truck that could handle it, and so we we love Rockwood, so we said well, what's the next biggest size of Rockwood?
Tony
So we bought a 02/2005. Yeah. And the interesting thing about that one is it was a prototype
Peggy
Mhmm.
Tony
Uh, of that floor plan with what they call the power package. And we'll, you know, we'll get into that.
Peggy
Right.
Tony
Um, but that was our introduction to ABC Upfitters and the master volt system.
Peggy
The solar and windshield. And all all
Tony
of that stuff. That was our introduction to that.
Peggy
So the twenty two zero five fit the bill of being bigger, certainly, but there were some things that you know? And now we're a little more confident. We've got a little more
Tony
More stupider.
Peggy
More What's your whatever. We know that mods can be done. We know we kind of, you know, have a feel for what mods are a good idea and what mods will make us have to keep the trailer forever. That travel trailer comes with theater seats. So it's like a pair of recliners Yeah.
Peggy
In the slide out. Wonderful.
Tony
Yeah. They're comfy.
Peggy
They were very comfortable. They aimed perfectly at the television. Unfortunately, what we were doing when we were on these road trips was we were still, and still are, working on the road. And so having really comfortable chairs wasn't really our top priority, unfortunately. And so my nephew, Joe, helped Tony, and we took the theater seats out.
Peggy
And we started using office chairs and these kind of nice Tef, like, folding tray folding trays to as desk as computer desks.
Tony
Yeah. So was
Peggy
one of our big mods was taking out the theater seats and turning that into a slide office.
Tony
Yeah. And then we also well that was when so a lot of other stuff was happening but we're staying at Peggy's sisters
Peggy
Right.
Tony
In her driveway in this twenty two zero five. And we also got our first taste of the GhostBed mattress.
Peggy
That's right.
Tony
And boy, you know, we we have just been big fans since then. But yeah, we dumped the RV mattress and got the GhostBed.
Peggy
The other thing that we did while we were still sitting there in the driveway, I believe, we were there about a month because we were in home transition. Yeah.
Tony
Moving to New Mexico.
Peggy
Moving to New Mexico. Uh, we took we we are, you might notice, kind of large. And our and RV showers are usually not kind of large. Right? And so that we had that radius, is that what radius Yeah.
Tony
The radius.
Peggy
The corner shower. Why just Kind of a
Tony
round end. There for a couple of reasons I don't like those. The Us our size, but also I just I filed enough warranty claims for those big pieces of glass in a moving vehicle is just Kind
Peggy
of not the best Yeah. Combo.
Tony
And so I filed a few warranty claims where those shatter. Well, you're always finding glass shards for a long time after that. So before ours could get a chance
Peggy
to shatter, we took the doors out. So what the way it's built is there's two kind of glass walls and then two glass doors that slide kind of together and apart. I can't think of the term for that. It's not French door. But anyway, uh, so we took those two movable glass doors out and replaced them with a shower curtain.
Tony
Yeah. Now we're now we're starting to, you know, take out the theater seats, take out the Yeah.
Peggy
Now we're making
Tony
some changes.
Peggy
Some actual significant mods that may or may not, you know, make it harder to sell in the long run. But it was what we needed, and we had no intention of really selling it. So we needed it to be what we needed it to be for our lifestyle.
Tony
So now we're we're much happier with this RV.
Peggy
Yeah.
Tony
Uh, sort of kinda. There was one aspect of it that we just didn't like, and and by this point we've made it to the Fagrat Forest River Owners Group. We'll be there again this year in August. And we're sat with the folks from Dometic, and Sarah said, so do you have anything you don't like about your RV? I'm like, yeah that GE fridge is terrible.
Tony
It the latch was terrible. It was not that efficient. It it was terrible.
Peggy
Every time we got on the road, it was a kind of thing. It didn't have a positive latch. It had one of those, you know, flip it over latches to hold the doors from moving. Well, that thing didn't stay in place.
Tony
No. So
Peggy
that fridge would work its way open. The refrigerator would slide open or swing open and smack into the folded stairs that were right there. Yeah. So from basically the first time we drove it, we had a dent in the refrigerator
Tony
door. Yeah. And it would keep hitting those stairs, and we finally kind of figured out how to make that latch sort of work, but it really didn't.
Peggy
So yeah.
Tony
Well anyway, so we're talking to Dometic, and I'm like well I don't like that GE fridge. And Sarah says how would you like to get one of our fridges? And I'm looking and I looked at their fridges and I'm like yes please. And so we swapped the GE fridge for a Dometic, I think seventeen ten, uh, same exact size. And oh boy did we like that fridge.
Tony
Mhmm. We that fridge was exceptional.
Peggy
And, uh, jumping ahead just a little, when we were ready to buy again, we thought we would swap out, but it turns out a lot of fridges have vastly improved over the last few years.
Tony
Yeah. If you're one of these people who say, oh, boy, these 12 volt RV fridges aren't all that great. Maybe it's not RV fridges, 12 volt RV fridges in general. It's that yours sucks
Peggy
like ours. It's you. It's not you. It's not you. It's the brand that you got in the rig that you bought.
Peggy
So there is a poss it is possible to have a good, good quality, good, you know, closing 12 volt refrigerator. So if we don't like
Tony
yours efficient than Yeah. What came from the factory.
Peggy
If you don't like yours, contact us and we'll give you some advice. Yeah.
Tony
Yeah. Yeah. On our fun and friendly Stressless Campers Facebook.
Peggy
Facebook group. Yeah.
Tony
Uh another thing we changed is we put on at the frog rally we were talking to Daryl Apts from Wacko uh RV AC silencer.
Peggy
Yep.
Tony
And the Coleman Mach is uh, let's just say it's a little noisy. And so Let's
Peggy
just say all RV air conditioners up to that point.
Tony
Until that point. Okay. I'll give you that.
Peggy
A little noisy.
Tony
Not the Trumas though. The Trumas were good too.
Peggy
Well, they were very rare.
Tony
Yeah. They are. Anyway, so Daryl came and installed a Wacko RV air conditioner silencer, and as part of that he also sort of resealed the interior of where the AC is, and so the air conditioner was both quieter and more effective. Yeah.
Peggy
More efficient.
Tony
So that was another really good mod we did. And of course we have our gas stops and our uh Hughes Power Watchdog and our command hooks and our RB locks and our command hooks.
Peggy
Yes. Some of those things just keep keep they're good mods, and they're good for every rig. So
Tony
Yeah. Makes it just there's no doubt that it makes an RV better. So one of the things hey the RV industry, listen to this. Lights in an RV should go out at night. I know some of you might like sleeping in a stadium, but lights should be able to be disabled at night.
Tony
Such as on, uh, pop up power pedestals.
Peggy
Well wait wait wait, I think you're a little bit ahead of yourself.
Tony
No no no, we we covered the microwave light. We didn't
Peggy
have a pop up in those days though.
Tony
No, but I'm just saying in general. Okay. Gotcha. So while we had a little USB thing next to the bed, that all that light was always on.
Peggy
Right. The USB port had a light, the microwave of course. The older microwave, there was a button, a way that you could turn the display off.
Tony
Yeah. Which made sense.
Peggy
But this one in the twenty two zero five did not have that, so we found a magnet that covered it just right. Also, because of the the way that the the layout of the twenty two zero five, when I was in bed, if I was laying on the Oh. Proper side Right. The, uh, inverter or this the CO detector, whatever has a light, was directly at the other end under the refrigerator right into my eyeball.
Tony
Yeah. RV industry, let's get rid of these LEDs all over the place, shall we?
Peggy
Yeah. So we either found magnets, like a magnet for the microwave, and then we found these kind of blackout stickers for
Tony
That's Scott from ABC.
Peggy
Scott from ABC gave me my first set, and Kate Pickle gave me my second set of set. Thanks, everybody. I've never actually had to buy them, but they're terrific. They you can either mute so that you can still see it, but it's not as bright, or we put two or three stickers on, and it blocks out the light completely.
Tony
Yeah.
Peggy
Now, as Tony said, we have the Pop up tower Of Powers right next to our bed in our current window.
Tony
And they're a bright green light.
Peggy
Bright green light right there next to the eyeballs.
Tony
But we like the pop up tower of power. Yeah. Another thing we added to that rig at Quartzsite was the, uh, Moride safety rail entry handle. Because it just we really like that thing.
Peggy
Mhmm.
Tony
And Moride, you know, we it's just a it's a neat we'll show you pictures if you're watching or if you're listening to this, you can find in the show notes photos. But that safety rail is a nifty thing. Mhmm. It really is a nice door handle. It replaces the fold over door handle, uh, and it's just like a big straight,
Peggy
uh, handlebar that goes at an angle with the stairs. So kind of, you know, the one that comes with it, you kind of have it's within a foot or two of the actual trailer, if you're at the bottom of the stairs it's harder to reach. That rail kind of came down with the stairs, so from the bottom of the stairs you already had a hand.
Tony
Yeah, it's it's good. Um, another thing we did is we got Starlink, and I was like how am I gonna put the Starlink dish outside with
Peggy
the Starlink's not necessarily a mod, right? Because it's all mobile and can come with you, but there was this one little thing.
Tony
Yeah, getting the cable from inside out. So drilled a hole in the side of the camper and, uh, there's a
Peggy
In the in the door of
Tony
the camper. Baggage door. Right. Right. And there's, uh, um, we have a video about that.
Tony
Video or story, I don't remember, but we'll put a link to that. And there's a plug I bought on Etsy. Some dude just makes these things, uh, for this purpose. You run a cable through and it's it's been through some serious weather and no leaks. So uh, allows me to run that cable without really modifying the rig too much.
Peggy
Too much.
Tony
Although, you could argue I drilled a hole in the thing.
Peggy
But it wasn't the whole wall. It was just in the cabinet wall.
Tony
Right, you would have to drill it, you would have to drill it to your own
Peggy
needs. Correct.
Tony
And we did that to our new trailer too.
Peggy
Right, right. That's one of those things that, again, we don't anticipate changing trailers, but in the event that we change RVs, that's a mod we'll probably carry forward and do again. Yes.
Tony
It's true. Uh, so the last mod we made was one, we're talking to Rockwood about this mod and they're like oh we really wish you wouldn't do it. Uh, we we got a hitch from B and W called the continuum. That is the best trailer hitch I've ever used. I love that thing.
Tony
Well, I shouldn't say that. It is one of my two favorites. Right?
Peggy
Sure. But There are a couple of things about the continuum that are less than ideal with the Rockwood, anyway. Now maybe frame
Tony
is built on the Rockwood and hence the complaint from Rockwood. I had to cut the frame on the trailer. I had to notch a hole because the b and w has a piston, a hydraulic cylinder and that kind of swings a bit as part of the way it works and on a rock wood there's there's a horizontal member to the frame. I had to cut a notch into it. Why were they not happy about that?
Tony
They weren't
Peggy
that happy about that. The other thing about the continuum, which was only a problem one time ever, is it actually sits kind of low. Yeah. So it's not normally a problem, but there was a time that we tried to stay with my cousin, Julie. Julie.
Peggy
And because of the configuration of the road and the driveway and the hitch, it scraped the driveway. We could not back into it.
Tony
No. It it does hang low. We've scraped that thing a few times.
Peggy
Yeah. It got scraped.
Tony
That made it so we couldn't back in.
Peggy
Yeah. And so so those are things to know. Like, they're a great hitch, but if it doesn't fit with your tongue, your RV, you know, manufacturer might not like if you cut it up, and if you ever you go get into deep dips. Yeah. It it does great.
Peggy
It's pretty low. So those are the two things.
Tony
If you're wondering, we did go back to we had the Camco Ease Lift, uh, TR3. Yeah. Uh, we went back to that. We had that one just sitting in the garage. We're like, well,
Peggy
I'll be new in
Tony
the trailer.
Peggy
We're gonna sell it. Luckily, we had
Tony
to sell it, but just that the transaction never happened. Right?
Peggy
Right. Yeah.
Tony
We found someone to watch it.
Peggy
We had a buyer, and then I had to back out on it. Yeah. So
Tony
Sorry. Um, so then, those are the mods we made to that trailer, Uh, and then And
Peggy
then, so we we did all these things knowing they were permanent mods, knowing that they might affect resale value, but also knowing that we were done changing. Right? We were done growing. We we had the rig we wanted. Uh, however, we also then, uh, during that time had another truck upgrade.
Tony
Oh, that's right. Yeah. We went to we talked to Oren.
Peggy
Oren, Oren, you spend a lot of my money.
Tony
Right. Or hardly earn money. Uh, Oren convinced us to buy a three quarter ton truck, so now we we got a bigger truck, we were at the frog rally. That frog rally is expensive.
Peggy
It's not only that he convinced us. It's not only that he talks us into it. It's numbers. He reminds us to look at the numbers, and we look at the numbers and we realize by, you know, the 1,500 was fantastic, way, way more than enough to tow the 19 o five. The 1,500 was barely enough to tow the twenty two zero five.
Peggy
So we got a 2,500, right? And now we're way totally enough capacity to carry that 2,205. And then as Tony said, the, uh, the Frog, Forest River Owners Group, has a rally every October. We went to the rally, and one of the things that we do while we're there is look through all the new rigs, not shopping, but writing reviews, right? This is one of Tony's big things.
Peggy
He writes, RV reviews. And so we were going through all the RVs that were there to write reviews about them. Well, we went into the newly redesigned for 2025, '2 thousand '5 hundred and '6 front kitchen.
Tony
So we got a 02/1100, FK.
Peggy
It was the kind of couple things that we struggled with with the February and '5, '1 being kind of a small shower and one being it's all one room. Our lifestyle is such that Tony's up like two or three hours before me and he'd, you know, not turn on lights and not make any noise and not make the coffee because he didn't want to wake me behind the curtain of the bed. And that we lived with it. It was fine. It wasn't that we were shopping for a new rig, but we went to review the twenty five zero six and realized, now this
Tony
is the
Peggy
perfect rig.
Tony
And so we we got that.
Peggy
Now I
Tony
will say this is the least we've ever modified a rig and been really happy
Peggy
with it. We had to really struggle to come up with a list. Yeah. For this
Tony
well, here's a shocker. We put in command hooks for hats.
Peggy
We attached our gas stop and used our Hughes Auto Watchdog.
Tony
Yeah, uh, I drilled a hole for the Starlink, which now if you look at our we have a resource on our website about how we get internet, We almost don't use the star link anymore.
Peggy
Yeah. It's
Tony
We've been using
Peggy
the f
Tony
r v a's, uh, wifi hotspot, and it's been so good. We're using that right now here in this hotel. Right.
Peggy
Here in this hotel. What did we do though? I'm trying to I'm struggling to remember.
Tony
No. Are you kidding? We did something really big. But, um
Peggy
Well, I thought we'd save that for the end of the list. Yeah.
Tony
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. One of the first things we did do though is we built those shelf things in the closets.
Peggy
You did that while I was away on the weekend and that was fantastic. All the Rockwoods we've had, a lot of RVs in the bedroom have a closet. It's not a closet from floor to ceiling mostly, but it's from ceiling to midway down. And we don't necessarily need closet hanging space. And so we have always looked for ways, we've used stacking containers with lids and stacked in there which means you always want what's on the bottom, right?
Peggy
We have used the hanging like closet sweater shelving thing and hung that in there so we had kind of some shelves in. Well, that worked for quite some time, but my last one, the hooks that hook up to the closet rod just straightened out. It might have put too many clothes in there.
Tony
Uh, might be, but you know what, here's the interesting thing. So the closet in our previous Mini Lite was up at the front of the rig
Peggy
Right.
Tony
And this closet is all the way in the back behind the axle and it's a longer trailer, so there's more of that shaking. Both of us that hanging closet thing, the hanger part straightened out and just dumped.
Peggy
Yeah. Mine straightened and yours ripped. Right?
Tony
Yeah. Mine ripped. And so we got these little shelves. Peggy found these shelves that fit perfectly in the closet, and they're those kind of shelves that, uh, you know, it's like a pole with a bunch of rings on it, and those plastic goodies, so you kind of mash the shelf down on the plastic goodies.
Peggy
So you kind of put the shelf where you want it.
Tony
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Peggy
It's just little plastic. And I do And
Tony
you have to count the rings and you always get the count one.
Peggy
Right. And I've been looking for one that would fit for a long time and finally someone someone in some group that I'm on in Facebook, who knows where, posted that they found and it was this measurement and I said, Oh, that's exactly the measurement I need. So I found them and I ordered two of them and then I said, But I don't just want shelves because then I have to reach all the way to the back and things are going to fall off the back. So I found some fabric boxes, open
Tony
top boxes Yeah, yeah.
Peggy
That fit right between the two legs of the closet shelf and that has been the most wonderful solution. Now, the day you're putting them in there, you will not think it's a wonderful solution because they are
Tony
Those shelving.
Peggy
I have heard, I haven't done it because Tony did it while I was gone, They are quite a feat of contortionism to build it inside the closet. Well, I
Tony
mean, you
Peggy
can't build it outside and push it in.
Tony
Like how many rings and then put the plastic thing and then shove the shelf down.
Peggy
In a dark closet.
Tony
There's four, and you're kinda reached over the bed type of situation. And so it's a it's a contortionist. It it it's I rate jobs by how many, uh, bad words
Peggy
are
Tony
involved. That was for as easy as the job as it is, that was a multiple bad words job.
Peggy
Yeah. If you can sit on the couch and do it in the in front of the coffee table, easy as pie. I've built those things so many times. But when you have to build it inside the closet because it won't go in after it's built, it's a little more work. But so, so worth it.
Peggy
There's also, uh, because, you know, cabinets are big and things slide around, We found at Costco I believe this set of clear
Tony
Oh yeah.
Peggy
Kind of acrylic or plastic whatever they are clear containers and those are now organizing every shelf of every closet and cabinet. Yeah.
Tony
Those are and what one of the things I like about them is they're clear of course. Uh, but also you can take them in and out of the house for packing and unpacking. So like if it's spices or canned goods or whatever, you just haul it in the house and reload or unload whatever, but yeah they make that very easy, and we also started using totes in the 02/2005, and now the whole pass through storage on our trailer. Yeah. Yeah.
Tony
Yeah. Well we have, I mean we we have baskets inside, and totes outside. Yeah. Yeah. And we labeled all the totes, and boy that makes it totes awesome.
Peggy
Now we did have totes that were clear. Oh, we had those snapware. With the lid that snapped on and the handle which I never wanted to use because I was afraid the box was too full of heavy stuff. But and those were nice and they stacked in there nicely, but then someone I saw that someone had this kind of the same size but in those I don't know what brand they are but those black and yellow, you know black totes with yellow lids. And they had small enough ones that were almost the same size.
Peggy
They're a lot more durable. So they're not see through, but we put labels on them Yeah. With label maker, and they're so they're a lot more durable, they're stackable, they're really good for fitting inside
Tony
Label maker is my friend. I even have a label on the rear view mirror of our truck with how tall the trailer is. So that if you know you're approaching the bridge, and you're like, what was that number again? You just look in the mirror and it's right there. But come
Peggy
on admit it. You have a label on the label maker that says label maker.
Tony
Well, get up. That way you know what it is. She's actually right.
Peggy
I'm not kidding.
Tony
We also hang towels. We've Peggy found a camco over the door
Peggy
towel holder. Oh, we don't have a towel holder. Well I think we've probably had six or eight of them over time. They're different, you know, different designs, different, but they hang over the bathroom door, and that's what we use to hang our towels on. Because, you know, again, a Rockwood thing, I don't know if this is universal, but when we bought each trailer, there's a bag and in that bag is a toilet paper holder and a towel bar that you can screw onto the wall wherever you want it.
Peggy
Well, screw into the wall is not a thing we're kind of that's one of the mods we don't like to do. Yeah. And so we got an over the over the door, over the bathroom door is a towel holder, and over the bathroom cabinet door is a toilet paper holder.
Tony
Yeah. And those things have been great. Yeah. And then we also have a paper towel roll holder
Peggy
Mhmm. That goes over a cabinet door.
Tony
That goes over a cabinet door, but super bonus, it fits in the outside TV mount.
Peggy
Get used to. This new TV mount is different. Oh is it? If you've got the kind of TV mount that's sort of a wide V shape, that you can slide the TV down into, Our over the door paper towel holder also slides right into the v shape. But this new mount is different, so.
Tony
And we've covered the LEDs in this trailer.
Peggy
Yes. With those stickers from Kate.
Tony
And then another thing we recently added, uh, is a windshield cover from Magna Shade. And I'll put a link to that video that we did, but oh boy this thing is just, it's top notch. I was so impressed with the way they like measured our windshield and then created this windshield cover so now if you have a 2021 or newer Rockwood or Flagstaff mini light micro light they make a windshield cover for and also a shade cover, and they just go on by magnetics. And as you might know if you've listened to this for any length of time, I'm the laziest person to do any job. And so you know you might like, we had a windshield cover previously on the twenty two zero five.
Peggy
It was Velcroed.
Tony
Yeah. It was Velcroed on. It went on one time, and it never came up.
Peggy
Now that's partially laziness, but it's also partially I didn't feel like it was gonna last forever if we were ripping that Velcro off every single time we stopped. So we just and it was over the bed. Yeah. We didn't really need a window over the bed. Yeah.
Peggy
And so
Tony
now this new trailer, the the windshield is in the kitchen where you want it.
Peggy
You want to be able to open it, so the Magna Shade has been great. It's so easy to put on and take off.
Tony
It is second. Well, if you can watch the video, it is seconds to get this thing on and off, and they it even comes with a pole, and it's got these little pockets, and you don't ever get up on a ladder. You well except when you're putting it on.
Peggy
When you're putting it, when you're putting the magnets in on the first time. Now you said if you own a 2021 or new blah blah blah, they will make it for any travel trailer. It's just that they already know the measurement for the windshield that Rockwood and Flagstaff have been using since 2021.
Tony
Right. And that yeah. They have these window shades for a ton of different RVs.
Peggy
Sure.
Tony
Yeah. They started with class a's and and all that. So there's
Peggy
Of course with class a's you you only put it on while you're stopped and you do that to to block the front windshield so that you have more living space without being seen. A travel trailer wants it for a completely different reason. Right? And so they're nice and thickly padded. They're very secure.
Peggy
They, you know
Tony
It's a it's a American made and it's a high quality product. It's the ideals that we look for. Right? A company here that's family owned that makes a high quality product. Yep.
Tony
So we like those MagnaShade wind windshield cover. And there's also a sunshade. So you can like you put this on it reduces the sun coming into the RV, but you can still see out. So it's kind of a neat so we swap it when we if you ever find us camping chances are we'll have the sun shade on the windshield, and that one they they can custom print so we've had our logo put on. We've had
Peggy
our logos on it.
Tony
So there you go.
Peggy
Can't hide from you guys.
Tony
So what was the biggest mod we did do to this trailer?
Peggy
Okay. So very first thing we did after we transferred everything from the twenty two zero five to the twenty five zero six and they put the the the hitch on while we were there.
Tony
Yes. They did. Yeah. Yeah. That was Juana RV in Shipshewana, Indiana.
Tony
They're good folks. We have now bought three trailers from them.
Peggy
So they got that all set up. We immediately drove straight to ABC Upfitters.
Tony
Yes, we did.
Peggy
Because this model, they do not have a power package option where where Rockwood puts the power package in as they build the RV. And we still wanted it, so we got an upfit.
Tony
Yep. So ABC, basically, they went to the factory to see how these things are built, Uh, looked at the placement of things, and they custom upfit, uh, power and lithium systems specifically for this trailer. And that's what they do. They're they do a lot of custom upfits, and they are in Indiana, they speak directly to the RV manufacturers, so they can measure cabinets and see how things are plumbed and wired, and put in a system that it just has worked since we got it in December.
Peggy
November. November.
Tony
It has worked perfectly since we got it in November. Uh, we've done so much boondocking and off grid camping, and it's just a solid system. We've had no glitches with it. Uh, the installation is so professional. It it it's it's high quality looking.
Tony
I would say it's factory, but I know some of you have a don't have the best opinion of RV factory. So I'd say it's it's an automotive automotive grade installation. How's that?
Peggy
Yeah. It's cool.
Tony
And it just works and it they worked with us to tailor this system to how we camp and what our demands are, and that's the kind of people they are. They also installed vertical taillights.
Peggy
I was gonna say we got a kind of a we're good at getting those prototype things. Yeah. We got a a prototype brake light system
Tony
Yeah.
Peggy
That couldn't be seen from others.
Tony
Yeah. It's fantastic. So if you're watching this on video, there'll be a video of it. Uh, if not, we have a link to where you can see it on our website.
Peggy
Yeah. Pictures don't really do it justice.
Tony
No. It's it's fantastic. And we've had people walk up to us at like campgrounds, you know, we're pulling in, they're like, where did you get that? Yeah. ABC Upfitters, and if that's the kind of upfit that you want for your RV, no matter what type of RV, what age even, uh, you can give them a call at (574) 333-3225.
Peggy
That's (574) 333-3225, or look them up on our website. And we are running pretty late. So here's what I'm gonna say. While you're on the website, sign up for the newsletter. Join our Facebook group, Stressless Campers Facebook group, so that you can have discussions, answer questions, ask questions, things like that.
Peggy
And with that, I think we should stop talking and let these people get back to their day.
Tony
Yeah. So with that, stressless camping.
Mark Ferrell
We hope you learned a lot and had some fun and got some tips for your next stressless camping adventure. We're honored by your reviews on Apple Podcasts, which helps others find us too. Don't forget to subscribe so you won't miss out on the adventure, and we look forward to your joining us next week. Until then, happy camping.
