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Old 11-06-2020, 04:56 PM   #1
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Model: Vegas 24.1
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THOR #15798
Viva - Mods to our 2016 24.1 Vegas

My wife and I bought a used 2016 Vegas 24.1 about a year ago and have been using some long trips (3-4 weeks) to shake it down and see what was working and what wasn't working for us. I have begun modification and farkling and thought I would share what we are doing. Many of the mods we will do are inspired by the many contributors on this forum and other sites and I hope some of our projects will inspire others. Let the farkling begin!

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Old 11-06-2020, 05:10 PM   #2
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THOR #15798
Moving the Mirror controls

In preparation for rebuilding the drivers side console with better and more cup holders and some storage, I moved the mirror controls to the dashboard. It was an easy hack to do as all the wires were long enough and it took about an hour. The benefits of this were that I no longer have electric controls where I was spilling coffee and as they are controls that I rarely use (heated mirror and mirror directional control) having them close but not 'at my finger tips' was fine. I moved both controls to the instrument cluster housing. (Mirror control is lower right and heated mirror switch upper right). This didn't require removal of the cluster housing as you can reach underneath and there is plenty of clearance behind. I applied painters tap to the instrument cluster housing, marked out where I wanted the switches and with a small step drill, a utility knife and and a rat tail file cut the holes for the switches. The job was pretty quick and easy. I also added a dual USB power outlet to the drivers side. Ill be posting the driver side console rebuild later.
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Old 11-06-2020, 08:03 PM   #3
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Thumbs up

Nice placement. I wouldn't have thought of using that space. Now I may even consider placing additional switches there in the future. Thanks for sharing.
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Old 11-23-2020, 11:13 PM   #4
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THOR #15798
Sound Deadening.

Two projects completed this weekend. Both were sound deadening projects as the noise in the cab was way too much for comfort In the DB meter it was registering 82 on some parts of I5 and they say prolonged exposure over 85 can cause hearing loss. Not to mention divorce! First up was to put KilMat in the dog house. This was messy as clearly somebody before me had tried a home brew method of cheap insulation and what appeared to be liquid nails. After scraping off all the old stuff, two bottles of 'googon" and a lot of w40 (yes its a great glue remover), I had a clean dog house and then applied two layers of KilMat. All the joints were layered and the edges sealed with aluminum tape. Next up was a much bigger project inspired by Stan Fowler. Stan I salute you. You may have saved my marriage or at least my RV future. Following posts from Stan I began looking at the dash and the top of the engine. Early inspection showed the same problem Stan highlighted that the plywood deck over the engine bad had separated from the cap front and wind and engine noise was basically just blowing straight through. Out cam the dash, our came the ventilation system and I went to work getting the front end sealed up. With the exception of about 12 inches the entire deck had separated from the front cap so some carful pushing and shoving and wedging from underneath let me get the gap closed and re-attatched with added screws and liquid nails. Its important to note that for what ever reason the corner A pillar is not closed at the bottom. Im not sure why that is but road noise and wind can blow straight up that 'A' pillar cowl. I closed mine so we will see what the effect is. I got a roll of mass loaded Vinyl from Amazon and laid that in taping up all the cracks i could find. As Stan says, removing the dash is not as hard as you might think if you take your time and I would like to think that it is put back with more care and alignment than Thor used. So after two solid days of work, a couple of skinned knuckles and some sore knees I am pleased to report the whole project was a huge success. The bus is quiet! test driving at 65 on the same stretch of I5 yielded a 72 max decibel reading which is a huge I improvement. If anybody is getting cab noise they don't want I highly recommend this project. difficulty is about a 5 out of 10 if you can use a screwdriver, a utility knife and can spend some time on your knees. If you want to try it and have questions I am happy to help. I have three more noise projects to complete and will report more. Thanks Stan!
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Old 12-01-2020, 06:37 PM   #5
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Thanks for the info. Any pictures of this project? Or any other projects?

I would have like to added "Mass Load Vinyl" to my Axis. But I have already added 2 to 3 (Even 4 in spots) layers of Dynamat / Fat Mat to bottom of the dash and Fire wall (from under my hood),and inside / under dog house.

If I had to do it again I would start with Mass Load then two layers of the other stuff. They say ML is the most effective barrier for sound.

But im very satisfied with my results. 10 x better than OEM.

Keep your MODS Update coming.
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Old 08-01-2021, 04:53 PM   #6
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THOR #15798
Windshield Roller blind hack.

Havn't posted an update in a while, due to a number of things, but have been busy making mods.

One of the things that has peeved me for a while is the front shade in the Vegas. Because of the way it is installed the shade drops to about half way down the instrument cluster cowl and that either leaves a 4" gap or you have ot push the blind out and keep inching it down to get it to go all the way to the main dash. Moving the blind 3 inches to the front would make it clear the instrument cowl. However to do that you would have to relocate the brackets and will end up with holes in the upholstery. The blind roller itself is about 1 1/2 inches wide so I flipped the shade around so that the shade now rolls off on the windshield side not the chair side. This was relatively easy to do.

You need a helper as the blind is heavy and with a helper you can accomplish the task without having to disconnect the wiring.
1. Cover the dash as the fittings on the blind have some sharp edges that could mark you dash.
2. Make sure the blind is rolled up, take the blind to the roller so it doenst unroll and take the blind assembly out of the clips holding it to the ceiling. A screwdriver helps to just pop the clips
3. Unscrew the motor end bracket (two screws) and ease the bracket back to let you slide the entire shade, motor and tube out of the bracket.
4. Slide the motor out of the end of the tube and pull the shade and tube off the other end. You should now have three pieces. The bracket, the roller shade and the motor.
5. Turn the the roller shade 180 degrees. Slide the motor into the end and reinstall the roller shade into the bracket.
6. Re-install the bracket into the clips in the roof.

You are done with part 1 and the down side of the roller shade should now be on the windshield side.

You will now need to do two more steps.
1. reprogram the shade stop points. Because you reversed the shade, up is now down and down is now up. On the motor is a small red button or some shades seem to have a little press switch on a wire. Either way you need to put the rollershade into program mode and set the limits on up and down. Im also told that some shades have a limit set for when the ignition is on. Personally I hate that and although I understand from a safety perspective you dont want your passenger completely lowing the shade when you are driving its a pain that with the engine running the shade wont go up from the fully down position. There is a simple remedy to this and that is to modify the wiring but that would be bypassing a safety protection

2. You now have to fix the switch if you want to still have it function the same. Up is now down and down is now up! The switch to raise and lower the shade is reversed. Its an easy fix to pull the switch and reverse the wires on the back.

Total mod time is about 45 minutes
Mod difficulty is about 6 out of 10
Helper Needed 1.
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Old 08-03-2021, 11:59 PM   #7
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Draw Latches during road trips

I have owned multiple vans and done multiple van conversions over the years. An ongoing issue has been keeping the draws closed while going down the road and I've tried lots of different options with different outcomes. As I have rebuilt almost all the cabinets in the Vegas (more on that project later but the originals are such poor quality and unnecessarily so!) I am again faced with the same old problem. As the problem I am solving is 'how to keep the draws closed going down the road' I wanted a solution that would not impact how the draws feel when we are parked as that is most of the time that we use the draws. The typical RV brute force latch wasn't an option. I went for a baby latch that I could "turn on and off". The latch of choice is Skyla Homes Magnetic Child Locks and you can order a pack of 12 for about $20.00 on Amazon. I like these for three reasons. 1. The magnets are strong and operate through 1/2 inch or 3/4 inch plywood draw fronts, 2) you can actually cut the left or right 'wing' off them, so they go in the corner of the draw out of the way and 3) They are stick on with adhesive pads but are robust enough to drill and screw if you have a really heavy draw. . I included a couple of pictures so you can see how I fixed them in a corner and on an open face. Cheap, easy and functional.

Total Mod Time is about 15 minutes per draw (including cutting off a wing)
Mod Difficulty is 2 our of 10 - you need a hacksaw
Helper needed 0 - Although DW approval is always good!
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Old 09-21-2022, 07:15 PM   #8
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The road to hell..

It is paved with good intentions and I had all the good intention of posting all the updates we have done here, as we did them. Well... long story short, life got in the way and i haven't posted in a long long time. We are now on the road full time and i find that I have space to go through pictures and put some updates together. If they help somebody that is great. If its just me recovering my integrity for saying id do something and failing miserably then it will still serve a good purpose ! :-)
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Old 09-21-2022, 07:25 PM   #9
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Bathroom Door handle - nail breaker no more

The 2016 we have has the bifold door on the bathroom and my lovely wife has broken a nail or two on the dang thing. So, in the interests of a happy wife equals a happy life and to reduce the cost of nail polish i modded the door handle. Two T handles from home depot and a black countersunk bolt from ACE. I drilled one of the pre threaded holes in a T handle all the way through and countersunk the face. One hole in the existing plastic handle and everything bolted up perfectly. The T handles form HD fit the width of the existing handle recess perfectly and no filing or jiggery pokery needed. Voila ! Since installation there have been no nail casualties and the balance of good life has been restored to the RV!
And just in case you ask, yes, we painted the door white from the old brown - it didnt come that way.
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Old 09-22-2022, 02:14 PM   #10
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Bathroom renovations

I updated the bathroom cabinet to increase storage, get rid of the horrible MDF brown cabinet, the terrible counter and the faucet that needed both hands to use. You can see the result in the photos below. The faucet matches our kitchen faucet (i've rebuilt the kitchen too), the new counter is actually an HDPE Cutting board i repurposed with the original sink put back in it (ill be changing that to a stainless one at some point). I built the cabinet out of MDO which is waterproof and easy to paint and I moved the bathroom heater vent to under the shower which let me add an extra cupboard space to the floor area to store toilet and tank cleaning chemicals. The extra space is a big bonus and it was easy to feed the heater pipe in under the shower base once i removed the old cabinet. Removing the original cabinet revealed the usual treasure trove of screws, wood shavings and crap left behind during the factory build / assembly of the rig. So sad they don't have the attention to detail at the factory. Total time was a weekend, mostly waiting for paint to dry and total cost was around 100 bucks. I still need to find a black power socket to make it complete but that is a rainy day project.
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Old 09-25-2022, 02:33 PM   #11
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Side cupboard to the Sofa

Another mod I did was to replace the pullout sofa but that is a longer post and I thought I'd drop a coupe of pictures of the mod I did to the slide-out as part f the sofa replacement. I added a cupboard into the dead space that was the arm of the sofa bed slide-out. It wasn't a huge job to do as I already had the sofa out and it gave us some much needed storage for maps, computers and bags. Please excuse the mess in the background.
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Old 09-28-2022, 12:40 PM   #12
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TV mount change

Our Vegas 24.1 came with three TV's. We are not big TV watchers so three TV's seemed overkill and I wanted to the use the space the outdoor TV was in as a kitchen. (thats another post). So, the bedroom tv and outdoor tv were summarily removed. The outside TV was actually bigger than the inside TV so i decided to swap those to and in doing so also changed out the bracket to an Amazon computer monitor mount. This lets the wall mounted TV in the living area to come out of the wall about 18 inches and most importantly lower by a good 12 inches. This means the viewing angle from the couch is much more comfortable and the TV is a little closer so we are not needing binoculars. Securing the bracket to the wall was a case of finding something secure to attach to at the top and the bottom.
This was a pretty easy upgrade that has given us a much better tv viewing experience when we occasionally put on a movie.
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Old 10-01-2022, 01:19 PM   #13
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Vegas kitchen rebuild

I was very unhappy with the kitchen we got in the Vegas. Lots of wasted / unused space, poor construction and the appliances were definitely the cheapest grade i think i have seen in any RV. So, we ripped it out, rebuilt the cabinets out of MDO (im a big fan of this ultra stable, paintable and high strength to weight ratio material) put in a few mods like a slide out trash can, and replaced the appliances etc. Been very please with it and we were even able to ad a slide out 'Can-try' that stores all our cans and spices with easy access!
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Old 10-05-2022, 12:40 PM   #14
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Pull Out Trash Can

As part of the kitchen renovation I added a pull out trash can to the area below the sink. I used two trash cans from rubbermaid that take plastic grocery sacks. The original plan was to use the front for trash and the back for recycle but as we seem to not have a lot of recyclables these days (we just have a paper bag between the wall and the passenger seat) and sadly a lot of campgrounds don't seem to offer recycling bins, the back trash can became storage for cleaning products and grocery sacks. The slide out has proved super good when cooking etc as I can just leave it open and drop things in during meal prep.
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Old 10-05-2022, 02:08 PM   #15
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It is hardwork to make your MH your own. But it is worth it.
You have put in a lot! We may steal your TV mod. idea.
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Old 10-05-2022, 03:05 PM   #16
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sheesh, and I feel accomplished when I fix little things...

you got me to thinking about building a new bathroom cabinet though...didn't even know about MDO.. Are you concerned about weight using MDO? Or using fairly thin boards?

Good stuff!
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Old 10-05-2022, 03:47 PM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by terencgb1 View Post
I was very unhappy with the kitchen we got in the Vegas. Lots of wasted / unused space, poor construction and the appliances were definitely the cheapest grade i think i have seen in any RV. So, we ripped it out, rebuilt the cabinets out of MDO (im a big fan of this ultra stable, paintable and high strength to weight ratio material) put in a few mods like a slide out trash can, and replaced the appliances etc. Been very please with it and we were even able to ad a slide out 'Can-try' that stores all our cans and spices with easy access!
Where’s the Micro/Convection oven?
Behind the upper cabinet fronts?
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Old 10-05-2022, 07:03 PM   #18
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Quote:
Originally Posted by widdershins View Post
sheesh, and I feel accomplished when I fix little things...

you got me to thinking about building a new bathroom cabinet though...didn't even know about MDO.. Are you concerned about weight using MDO? Or using fairly thin boards?

Good stuff!
I use mainly 1/2 inch MDO and it has a better strength to weight ratio than MDF as well as being more stable and easier to work with. There are some trick you can use in areas that you cant see like using a hole cutter to make 2" holes to reduce weight even further. After all my cabinet rebuilds, I weight stuff as ai put it in and took old out, I am about 40lb better off. Thats a good saving considering I think i also gained a lot of storage space in the process.
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Old 10-05-2022, 07:10 PM   #19
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Quote:
Originally Posted by taylorbob1 View Post
Where’s the Micro/Convection oven?
Behind the upper cabinet fronts?
We took out the micro/convention. The extra space let us have several appliances in that cupboard (i have a youtube video of the kitchen if there is interest) including an air fryer. We haven't owned a microwave in over a decade so we don't miss it. When we reheat food it is usually making it into something different or I steam it / airfry it but I like to cook so its part of the fun. Today i used some left over pulled pork on a hashbrown with a poached egg to fix lunch. Mostly all done in the air fryer.
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Old 10-07-2022, 01:32 PM   #20
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Quote:
Originally Posted by terencgb1 View Post
We took out the micro/convention. The extra space let us have several appliances in that cupboard (i have a youtube video of the kitchen if there is interest) including an air fryer. We haven't owned a microwave in over a decade so we don't miss it. When we reheat food it is usually making it into something different or I steam it / airfry it but I like to cook so its part of the fun. Today i used some left over pulled pork on a hashbrown with a poached egg to fix lunch. Mostly all done in the air fryer.
I'd like to see the video.....
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