While we were on our trip over the summer, both of the pull rings from our Williamsburg loveseat recliners had broken. Yep, first Steve's broke and then mine. They broke right at the cable where it reaches the handle.
We did a temporary fix while we were on the road just so they would operate. We extended the cable as far as we could and bent it over and crimped it down over a ring to pull on with our fingers. But this was not the end-all "fix" that we wanted.
Here's the blog post where I talked about our fix with the temporary repair:
Once we got home, we needed to dismantle the seats from the base of the slide so we could get out the original cables. We needed to measure the original cables to know which ones to order.
They have a large variety of different handles and cables. You have to measure the exact length and have the exact right tip, as well as the distance between the handle and the first bracket. We found the ones that we needed and they shipped them out quickly. We got them within a few days.
Since we had to disassemble the love seats by taking the backs off and then unscrewing them off the base of the slide, this was now the perfect opportunity to make a correction to the wooden base of our slide.
The love seat is the type that is called "wallhugger" design, just like Lazy Boy. It means if you go to recline, the seat portion scoots forward so it takes less space behind the loveseat against the wall. That works out fine except in our case, when we mounted the love seat into the very outer edge of the platform base, we still didn't get a lot of clearance behind to the wall. That meant we couldn't recline in the love seats fully because it hit the wall.
In the photo below you can see how much space we only have.
If we could scoot it out an additional three to four inches, we would be able to then recline more fully. That was kind of important to us, and something we haven't been able to do over the last 2 years.
In this photo below, we shoved the base frame forward in the slide and now we can get a full recline. But that means we need to extend the platform bottom of the slide 3 inches further into the room. It was already extended 2 inches into the room with a piece of angle iron metal that we put on when we first installed the love seat.
Steve determined that if we put a new platform down, we could increase the depth of the slide and move the entire love seat forward about 3 more inches. That was our goal.
Some slide mechanisms in RVs are more complicated and need to slide out and nestle down flat to the floor or roll on rollers. It makes it much more complicated to extend the platform floor of a slide in those types of applications. Fortunately, ours is very simple and stays at one level whether it's in or out.
So, now that everything is torn apart, is the perfect time to extend this platform floor. We decided to only extend the platform in 2/3 of the area and leave the original seat belt attachments where they are. That is a safety feature we did not want to mess with.
Steve purchased a 3/4-inch piece of sturdy plywood and cut access holes for the slide motor and wiring that needed to go through. He created divot spots for the bottom bolts of that stuck out from the underside of the loveseat bases. Now it would nest in perfectly, and not be riding on the exposed nuts and bolts on the frame like it was before.
We painted the outer edge of it black, that's the only spot where you're going to see it if you look down from underneath while it's attached back in the slide. Notice how we left the original seat belt fastening features in the back 12 inches or so of the slide.
Steve fastened the plywood board down in multiple areas using 2 dozen self tapper screws that attach directly into the frame of the slide, not just into the previous wood, which was very thin. When he was done, he said "That ain't going nowhere..."
Now that the plywood was secure, he was able to bring back in each of the seat bases to install them into the slide. He had them in the garage so he could transfer accurate measurements onto the plywood. Look at that guy, how happy he is to be carrying his seat back into the motorhome. They easily fit through the door, and I grabbed them on the inside. It's quite easy to install one of these loveseats through the narrow door of an RV.
First thing was to hook back up the electrical connections. These are wires that go up to the speakers and the light in the slide overhead in the cabinet. Once that wire connector was safely into place he was able to start fastening down the base frame of his side of the loveseat.
We pulled the seat belts forward up through the back access areas of the seat.
Once the upper back portions are snapped into place, the buckled seat belt can be tucked down in between the cushions. It's easier to leave it buckled so it's easier to access it in the event of a passenger needing to sit there.
In the photo below, you can see the black platform of the plywood extending out beyond the box of the slide itself. This has now enabled us to scoot the entire love seat forward and fasten it down securely to the board. Now the recliners will work better!
Steve went around the entire base frame with many heavy duty screws to attach it to the plywood board. The little recessed holes he drilled were perfectly matched up to the nuts and bolts on the bottoms of the frames.
We decided that even with the screws in the base on each side, we would also add eight of these pipe brackets (4 for each chair). They fit perfectly over the front and the rear support bars of the seat bases. It can't hurt to have extra insurance, and we already had them on hand in the garage.
He decided to try his out... Before he even got my side done. Look at that--- Now he can recline all the way and not hit the wall!!!
Now that his half of the seats were fastened down, it was time for him to bring in mine.
It was a little snug to get back there and attach these things. But Steve was able to squeeze his legs down in between and try to kneel on the board to get to where he needed to get. Pretty soon, he had everything attached!
It took some contortionist positions to get down underneath to fasten it with the leg rests raised out of the way.
Finally it was time to snap on the last backrest on my side. They just snap down into place on two levers. Click click and it was done. See how we have the seat belts pulled forward and latched together? Now we will tuck that down in between the cushions and save it for the event if we ever have a passenger along.
As Steve would say "So there you have it"... It's all done! Yayyyyyyyy
Of course, we had to try them out. It is really nice to have them extend all of the way back and not hit the wall partway. This is how we should have installed them in the first place 2 years ago.
DID YOU KNOW
THAT LOVE SEATS
ARE FOR LOVERS?
And now for a little motorhome modification that we had done. This is a beautiful acacia wood tray from Aldi. But you could really use any nice tray that you would find to do this...
We had removed the original large rectangular table that came with our motorhome. In it's place we decided to do a smaller circular cocktail tray when seated at the loveseat. It is much easier to get in and out of the chair with the circle table in place then the original rectangular one.
We bought an extra table bracket from The Boat Seat Store:
The reason why it is offset to one side is so the table can be rotated to either be closer in, or further away from our seats.
We also needed a little taller post than the original one that came in our motorhome. The boat seat store also carried those called a Sure Fit pontoon boat post. We ordered it in the 27-in length:
There is a secondary floor mounting location in our motorhome, up near the two cockpit seats. They can swivel around and become part of the living room area as well. So the cocktail table can go over there too.
The table can be swiveled closer or further away, and works all quite well if we're playing cards or Yahtzee or just setting a big bowl of popcorn on while we watch a movie.
The best part is, that because it's positioned exactly in the middle. It can stay situated between our two leg rests when they are raised. Perfect!
Here is the YouTube that goes along with today's blog post:
So that was our motorhome modification / repair for the day. We only have a couple more to do before we post about our upcoming camping trip. I might put those out of order and work on our camping trip on the next blog post.
We belong to a Facebook group that has owners of the Winnebago View and also the Navion. It's great to read various hints and tricks and tips on motorhome maintenance from other owners with the same models.
One of the posters has the exact same model as ours with the rear bed slide. He had posted about a website that he ordered a custom-made RV mattress and he was quite pleased with the results.
After going to their website, I could see all the different RV type mattresses they could make. They can make the corners a certain way, they can make the sizes however you want, and they can also put a "hinge" into a two-piece mattress to make it fold up. That is exactly what we need for our back rear slide.
Our current mattress is only about 5 in thick. It is the original two-piece cushions from Winnebago. They are actually 10 years old, based on the fact that our rig was built in 2015, even though it's called a 2016 model.
It is a queen size bed but the mattress is in two pieces. That's because before the slide comes in, you flip the top portion over on top of the bottom portion. I say it's "like a taco".
The two pieces just butt up next to each other and you cover it with a bed sheet. We had also covered it with a 3-in memory foam pad and an electric mattress pad. It's been okay and pretty comfortable over the last 2 years. But then after reading about Troy's post of his good experience with the Wilderness RV Mattress Company, we decided to do an upgrade.
I even like their logo. How cute...
They make various types of innerspring, memory foam, and even bunk bed cushion mattresses.
We comfortably sleep on a 12-in memory foam in our house. So we decided to order with the 10-in memory foam on the website. Plus, it was on sale!
We paid $733 and also got free shipping.
We put in all the numbers and all the measurements of what we needed. You can select the shapes of your corners, all of your dimensions, and exactly where you want the hinge to be placed. It happens that the top half of our mattress actually needs to be an inch thicker than the bottom half. Because of the slide configuration, there is a difference in height. So we were able to plug in those numbers for the height difference in each section. I had a bit of difficulty online, so I called them on the phone and they took care of getting the measurements logged in correctly and placing my order.
Because it is custom-made, it takes about 2 to 3 weeks to get it. Two weeks on the dot we had gotten ours delivered to the house via FedEx. Free shipping!
The video of our unboxing and releasing the plastic and letting it open up is on the YouTube link below at the end of this blog. It was quite funny.
It took shape very quickly and was ready to sleep on in 15 minutes. There were no odors or off-gassing of the materials. We were quite pleased with the mattress and it seemed to be very well made.
In the flipped open position it is comfy and thick and very suitable for what we are looking for. The bed of course is twice as high as what it was before. But it works out perfectly.
You really can't tell much by this photo, but the top portion where our heads go is an inch thicker than the bottom portion of the mattress. It was made exactly to what we specified. The "Hinge" is the horizontal line across the mattress.
We put on our electric mattress pad heater, and then our sheets. The deep pocket sheets we had bought last spring fit the 10-in height perfectly. Before on our 5-in height they were a little loose.
Last, but not least, we topped it off with my beautiful quilt that I made for our trip to Alaska. The pattern is called "Winter Solstice" by Patty Carey. I named it our "North to Alaska" quilt.
We topped it off with the two throw pillows that I made. Those are perfect for laying in bed and watching TV. My oh my, such decadence. Lol!
Mr. Nicholas had to try it out and give it his final four paws up note of approval. He does hop up on the bed for nap time, but at night time he sleeps on the floor on my side on his own little doggy bed.
It was a pretty hot and humid day when we were working on putting the mattress into place. We had turned on the air conditioning earlier in the day so the motorhome was actually quite comfortable. We decided to stretch on out, as Nicholas had invited us to take our nap out there. Yep, we took our nap right out in the driveway. And it was pretty darned relaxing!
(Incidentally, we put up the old mattress set on Facebook Marketplace for free and someone who was restoring a tear drop type trailer really, really needed it. The one that they had ordered was too big--- and this two-piece one would work much better for them. Much better than just their sleeping bags on hard plywood. They were so excited to get it!)
Since we got home, we have had some very very humid days. Most of our mornings start out with a misty fog across our back field. We are very close to the baywaters of Green Bay and it is quite humid. A big contrast to when we were out West and up North into Canada and Alaska.
Now it was time for our next motorhome modification / upgrade.
The front cockpit seats of the Winnebago View are part of the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter 3500 chassis. The type of vinyl that is used on their seats is made to look like leather. But after 9 to 10 years, they start to flake and peel. Other Winnebago owners have complained of the same thing. They looked really nice two years ago when we first bought the rig. But after a lot of heavy use, they really are showing their wear and tear.
Again, through the advice and experience of other Winnebago owners, they have suggested that the best seat covers for the money that are custom-made come from this company:
We were able to choose from a wide variety of colors and different textures. You can get fabrics like canvas, similar to Carhartt outerwear. You can get neoprene type water resistant. You can get fabric like corduroy or velor. We chose to go with the vinyl. The other Winnebago folks said that it comes really heavy duty thick marine grade vinyl along with great stitching and fits like a glove. So we chose a rich deep charcoal color that matches with our interior dash and door trims. It will also match better with our dark gray loveseat in the living room area of the motorhome.
We paid $343 total to custom make the 2 seat covers that we needed. They took about 3 weeks and arrived just in time for us to put them in place before going camping.
Again, the process of putting them on is on the video link down at the end of this blog if you want to watch it.
Each seat comes in four different pieces. The bottom, the back, the headrest, and the armrest.
The bottom seat sections went on perfectly and look great! After this photo was taken, we pulled the bottom drawstrings tighter and attached the straps and clips underneath. It then smoothed out at the corners.
The back portion slid over just like a big sleeve and clip down underneath. The scary part is actually cutting two little tiny holes for the headrest brackets to snug into place. You will have to watch the video to see what I mean. When it's done it looks really great. But it's really scary to take a scissors to something you spent over $300 on. Lol!
Hint- Getting the headrest cover on was easier by leaving it in place on the top of the chair than trying to do it off the chair.
The armrest portion was the hardest. It took both Steve and I quite a bit of effort to get that last piece around the "elbow" of the armrest. We had watched a video on YouTube on how to install them, and they had a difficult time too. But, in all honesty, if it wasn't that tight, it wouldn't look that good when it was all done.
The back portion even has a pocket for putting in our roadmaps, just like the original seat did.
We worked hard on the one seat on the passenger side. When we were done, we decided that was enough for today. We would tackle the driver's seat the next day.
The driver seat went a little easier because we already knew what we were doing. But I would say it took approximately half an hour per seat to get it done correctly. If we hadn't watched the YouTube from the company, probably would have taken us two or three hours per seat!
So here they are, all done. They match nicely with the interior. I think much better than the cream colored ones did.
Some people might think dark gray charcoal seat covers would be uncomfortable or hot. If we ever park in the sun, we have the little accordion retractable shades that pull out from the window frames. This can easily block off any unnecessary sun penetration.
I think the color goes perfectly with the reclining loveseat that we had installed back when we first bought the motorhome.
After the seat covers were stretched on in the rig for two or three days, they kind of form fitted to the seats and all of the wrinkles from shipping came out of the surfaces. I think they look really great!
One other little upgrade we did that really doesn't affect the blog itself, but it does affect the corresponding videos that I post on YouTube. I was having such a difficult time during our trip with the audio portions. The wireless mics I had did not work properly with my GoPro 8. They kept giving me a lot of grief. I tried using a wired Purple Panda mic, but I think it has a broken or cracked wire inside. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. How frustrating to record hours of video and not have audio included!!!
TIME FOR NEW MICS
I bought this set off Amazon with some good reviews. It works and plays well with the hookups on both of my GoPro 8s with the media mod device. Yippee! I finally have a set that will let us record and remove the offending engine or air conditioning noise while we are traveling. In a way it's a modification, but it's also something that we needed to compliment our traveling videos on YouTube.
Speaking of that, here's the link to the video that goes with today's blog:
So that's about it for today's modification post about things we've done to the motorhome. Stay tuned for the next one because we are going to replace the broken cables with D pull handles on the recliner loveseat as well as replace our automatic step motor on the entry door.
Also. I am posting this while we are on a week long camping trip to beautiful Door County, WI. Stay tuned for those upcoming blog posts too!
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