We made the hour-long trip north again so we could be closer to a New Years Eve gathering of friends. I think this is the second time we’ve visited the lake in winter and this time it has a coat of ice on it. There are some crazy-ice-fisher-peeps out on the lake catching fish without a boat. I will never understand the point of ice fishing. It’s 5* out there and the wind is blowing 30 mph = Brrrr!
New Years Day we start our westward journey to California. Gotta cross Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada before we get to the warm tropical paradise of Northern California. Tropical you say? Yup. It’s minus-8*f in Wyoming so 50* on the coast will be shorts-weather.
The last time I changed a gas bottle, which happens about every 5-days now, I noticed the hose was leaking gas at one of the crimps. I checked the other hose and it was leaking too.
Old set-up with kinked hoses
The way the pig-tail hoses are arranged between the tank and the regulator seems a bit chintzy. There is a 45-degree turn in the hose right at the regulator followed by a tight 140-degree turn to get lined up with the valve on the tank. This puts a lot of strain on the hose-crimps. The hoses started leaking at the hose-crimp on the tank end of the set-up and it was made worse if the hose was side-loaded.
I emailed my contact at Outdoors RV and explained the situation. Within a few hours arrangements had been made for me to get new hoses and they showed up on my doorstep a few days later (turns out it was still covered by warranty). Outdoors RV has been great to work with when things come up with my travel trailer. I gotta say they are about 10,000 times more responsive than the dealer (a division of camping whirled).
The first thing I did with my new parts was to run to Home Depot and get more parts. I bought a couple of elbows and some nipples to make a hard-pipe connection that turns the first 90-degree bend. Then the hose only needs to make a sweeping 180 to reach the tank. All of the hose in the pig-tail is available to make the 180-turn so the radius is bigger and kinking is reduced. Even though the loops are bigger they still fit under the tank cover just fine.
New set-up with broad sweeping turns in the hoses. Tight turns in brass fittings
I leak-checked the hoses and fittings a couple times and they hold gas pressure. I’ll check them again on a warmer day because the pressure will be higher than on the cold, gray, windy day I did the repair.
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