The Cummins Onan generator that's on the Travato needs a regular oil change. The manual actually says first 20 hours, then every 150 hours. But I'm playing it safe (as this is a critical piece of equipment for boondocking) and doing it every 100 hours. There is a good written procedure on how to do this on the Travato Owners and Wannabees Facebook Group that I started with. Basically, get these parts, drain the oil, put in 24 oz (only) of new oil, run for a bit and double check the dispstick.
Parts required:
1 Qt Oil. Cummins recommends 15W-40, but a high quality 10W-30 should work fine.
The Cummins Onan generator is rather noisy, but adding a resonator (kinda like a muffler) makes it a little better. It takes the edge off the percussive sound from the exhaust pipe. This was a fairly easy modification which didn't take more than half an hour. Basically, you cut off the last bit of straight pipe after the bend, and attach the resonator in it's place. In my case, I needed a new strap hanger as well.
While travelling up to Iowa to visit with other Travato's and join the Winnebago "B" Factory tour, I dumped our tanks along the way. But I had a surprising thing happen to me -- the black handle pulled out a little farther than it normally does. Actually a lot further. I was able to stuff it back in the hole after it finished dumping and it pushed closed, but it then didn't open up again. Oops.
Bago parts to the rescue!
On our way out of Forest City, we stopped off at the Winnbagoparts.com facility near 9 and picked up a replacement valve. I realized while travelling back south that it should just bolt in, making it unnecessary to break the glued piping joints and reconnect. But, there was of course the problem of the stuff in the tank.
Macerator Must-have
One of the other Travatoans that I hung out with in Iowa pointed out how easy it was for him to use a macerator pump to dump at home - through a hose into the toilet. So I grabbed one at Camping World, so I could go ahead and empty the tank and affect the repair, while parked in a convenient driveway with a hardware store down the street.
Opening the valve
Of course the big problem was how to open the valve on the existing one prior to unbolting it to reduce the messiness of this operation. I came across a solution in the form of a 1/4-20 x 5 inch long threaded bolt of the same diameter as the metal rod actuator, and was able to screw it into the worn plastic hole and pull the valve.
Dumps away
The macerator worked well to deal with the contents of the tank, which were transferred safely to septic system in the back yard. I then was able to complete the repair with only a minor smelly mess, which was of course caught completely on video.
Video evidence
Warning: This installation video includes leakage of contaminated water. Viewer discretion advised.
Note: I own the driveway I'm doing this on, so it's really not a serious problem.
The overhead (over cab) storage has some screws sticking slightly up from the metal support bar. There are plastic nuts holding the storage tray down, but if the screws stick up through the plastic bolts the threads can catch on things as you try to remove them from storage and cause tears.
Simple fix is to put a couple of washers under the nut to space it up and cover enough of the screw.
The hanging storage closet to the right of the fridge has two problems for us:
It's too short. Crystal's dresses won't fit.
It's too small. Not all of her dresses will fit.
It's in the kitchen. Who wants to store clothes in the kitchen?
Okay, so that's three things. But it could make a great pantry, with the addition of some shelves. So I got to work and purchased "standards" which are the vertical slotted thingys that you put clips in to hold up shelves. Cut two in half, set them to rest on the bottom of the storage, and cut some shelves to fit. I added a trim piece on the front to dress them up and make a slight lip to keep things from wanting to fall out. Here's the video:
