1988 Sunline 19.5' Fridge Mod (T-1950?)

[jphb]

Hello all,

First time posting here. I was given an old 1988 Sunline 19.5 feet trailer in good condition. It was apparently rebuilt by a previous owner. The refrigerator was moved from the dining area to the back bedroom. I would like your opinion on this modification. Any reason/advantages of doing this? A bit weird having to reach into the bedroom when cooking.






Cheers,
jp

[JohnB]

Welcome JP!

To answer your question about moving the fridge to the back, h'mm. There may be a few technical issues depending on how the move was made.

The fridge in your pics looks like a Dometic absorption fridge. These absorption fridges create heat to cool with, and yours may be a combo LP gas with an electric heating element option. If the fridge is "operational", there should be a hole in the outside back wall and a lower heat grate cover to allow air into the cooling coil area. Then, another hole was cut up on the roof, and a roof vent was used to enable the heat to escape. Cool air comes in the bottom vent and then out the roof vent. They may use the fridge shell as an ice chest, which is not operational, so there is no hook-up in the back or vent holes for airflow. One never knows...

The old location would have these holes in the camper's outside wall and roof, and I'm wondering what they did with those holes??

Start by examining the back wall and the roof in the new location. Take clear pictures of both areas. Then, remove the grate from the lower opening and take some more pictures of the back of the fridge. This will give us a better understanding of the current setup.

They would also have to move the LP gas line if they planned to run it on gas and bring 120 VAC power to the back of the fridge area.

While you are at it, open the fridge inside, and there should be a part number and serial number tag. Take a pic of that, too, and post.

Let's see what was done, and then we can answer better if the move is done OK.

Another important consideration is the weight and balance of the camper. Adding extra weight at the back wall without adjusting for the weight shift might lead to an imbalance, particularly in a situation with tongue weight that is too low. This can be rectified by redistributing other cargo to rebalance the camper.

The good news is that this is a tandem axle camper (it weighs more and is more tolerant to weight changes) and may or may not be okay on the loaded camper tongue weight. You want about 12 to 15% of the loaded camper tongue weight per total loaded gross weight to have the camper tow stable. While 10% tongue weight is the lower limit, on a TT, when an LP tank goes empty and someone loads heavy to the back of the camper, being at 10% may go under more quickly and become unstable in certain conditions. This can all be sorted out as long as you know you have to weigh the camper and load it correctly to balance things back out and have good towing tongue weight.

I hope this helps. Have fun with your new Sunny!

John

[jphb]

Thank you so much John! I'm going to see the trailer this weekend so I'll have a better look at all of this. I suspect other mods have been done but hard to tell since I never own an original model. I'll document as much as I can and report back.

[JohnB]

Hi JP,

Now doing a little more digging, you used the wording 1988 T-1950 with a ? mark. You stated 19.5 ft; I am not sure what the owner told you, but see the sales brochures from that era here. We have almost all years, and you can go back into a floor plan model by knowing the year and then lining up the floor plan and seeing what the model is along with length etc.

To get to the brochures, look at the top of the forum for the words FILES, which is a tab, and click it.


Then go to brochures, find your year, and download a copy.

Also, the 19.5-foot Sunline states the length from the ball coupler to the back bumper; some folks call this the box length, front wall to back wall, and no camper tongue, which is about 4 feet longer. The brochures are set up on the ball coupler to the back bumper. Take a tape measure if needed.

The VIN number can tell the actual model year (not necessarily the manufactured year, as new models come out halfway through the prior year). The 10th digit from the left is the model year: H=1987, J=1988, and K=1989. The current owner may not really know what exact model year it is, but the VIN will confirm. The VIN is on the title and many times on a tag or stamped into the trailer A-frame by the ball coupler for your era camper.

There is also a "series" of the campers, Saturn, Satellite, Solaris, and Seville. By the few pictures of the outside, and if it is a 1988 model, it might be a Satellite T-1850 at 18 ft in or a T-2000 at 20 ft 5 in. 19.5 ft does not appear in the brochure length nor the T-1950, which may be a guesstimate. T-1950 is a popular model in later years.

Also, the furnace on the back wall is suspect; it may have moved with the fridge. There must be a vent outside the camper for air intake and exhaust for the furnace, so look for holes in the siding at the old and new locations.

I hope this helps. Good luck.

John

[sparkzaflyin]

I have a 1986 Sunline Saturn 15.5 footer, the refrigerator is located near the rear of the camper, near the sleeping area just like yours. The furnace is directly underneath as well. I suspect that you have the original factory location of appliances, they only had so much room to plan with the small campers.

[jphb]

@sparkzaflyin Thanks for the info, it certainly looks like it. I couldn't see evidence of things being modified, all looks original. They did change a strip of the siding that could potentially hide the old openings for the fridge vent/trap door but it's all pretty clean.

@JohnB I'm having trouble transferring my photos but the fridge is a RM2401 combo gas electric and the heater is a Hydro Flame FA7916 (mkI, not II). Both propane hoses at the tanks were completely destroyed so I couldn't get decent pressure in the system because of the leaks and local stores didn't have any in stock so I'll have to go back with the new hoses I ordered to test the systems. There was one of the water pipes that burst open because the lines weren't emptied last winter so that made a bit of a mess under one of the front seat but it all dried up.

I didn't realize how poorly built these walls are (I am an architect so my standards might be higher...): once water gets in it can ruin the whole assembly quickly. Any ways, lots of fun ahead, looking forward to fix a few things so I can enjoy spending some time in it!

Thanks for all the help!

[jphb]

Found it in the brochure, it's actually a Satellite T1850. Running on electricity the fridge seemed completely silent so not a problem sleeping next to it.