Category: Camping

Getting Started with your new Jayco X213 or any Travel Trailer

I am writing this post to let new owners of a Jayco Jayfeather X213 or similar recreational vehicle what they need to bring along with them on their camping trips.  The camper comes well equipped from the factory but several items are required to make your vehicle completely usable and enjoyable on a camping trip.

Bare necessities
  • Utilitiy Connections
    • 30A to 20A Adapter – You might not be able to run everything but you will at least have power if you need it and there isn’t a 30A Socket
      • Also handy when you are setting up at home since more often than not you will not have a 30A exterior socket on your home.
      • A heavy-duty extension cord would also be good.  If using a cable over 25 feet get a 10 Guage one instead.
    • Sewer Hose and Clear Elbow – If you are going to make a sewer connection or clean out you black and grey tanks
      • The clear elbow makes it easy to tell when your black tank is clean
      • You will also need black tank deodorizer.  I prefer the Porta-Pak portioned tablets but there are many options out there
      • Rapid dissolving toilet tissue is also highly recommended, the last thing you want to do while camping is unclog your sewer line
      • A hose support is also good to have to keep sewer moving in the right direction
    • Fresh Water Hose – to connect to the city water connection
      • Optionally a fresh water filter will remove some of the bad odors that can be found in some campground water
      • Sometimes water pressure can be amazingly high at campgrounds and as such can damage some of the plumbing in your camper. This makes a water pressure regulator also good to have and is cheap insurance against over pressure damage.
      • If you are dry-camping but have access to a spigot you can fill your freshwater tank with this water bandit.
      • Important: Never use your freshwater hose to connect to anything other than city water and never use it near a dump station!
  • Site Setup
    • Wheel chocks such as these light weight ones for lots of travel or these heavy duty X-Chocks when you are going to be around for longer
      • I have these One-step chocks and they lock the wheels nearly as well as X-chocks but setup way faster
    • Leveling blocks like the Tri-Lynx to level your camper side to side
      • You could use wood, however you don’t want to carry wet or insect laden wood between campsites.
      • Some campgrounds may prohibit any wood from being used
    • Stabilizer Jack Pads – to protect your landing gear from rusting on the ground
    • Tongue Jack Stand or something hard like the stabilizer jack pads for the tongue jack
    • A tongue or coupler lock – nothing can shorten a trip like a missing camper

Once you have the basic supplies for your site setup you can prepare your camper for the road.  I always go-through my pre-travel checklist to make sure I am ready to go.

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Jayco X213 Quick Table/Work Surface

I recently found some nice hard pine thrown away from a wood processing place down the road and a scrap piece of what looked like an aluminum awning track at my local transfer station/dump.  The channel fit the exterior grill mount so I decided to whip up a quick table with the discarded pine I had found.  This mounts on the exterior of the camper with the channel and a paint-stick extension.  The paint stick serves double duty along with a brush head to remove the debris from the slide-out before pulling it back in.  The construction was simple and was built based on some quick measurements I did.

IMG_1123
Mounted on the trailer.

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Jayco X213 Under Couch Access Mod

Here’s an easy mod to make some of the storage in your X213 a little easier to access.  This may apply to other models depending on how the Couch/Bed is configured.  On my camper the skirt beneath the couch is purely decorative.  In that I mean it does not structurally support any weight of the sofa.  On my model the skirt was held on with two square drive screws. from the back.  Remove these screws to give access to the ample storage under the sofa.  You might now even be able to fit something under there.

File Jul 27, 6 58 48 PM

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Water Can Replacement Lid

Photo Jul 19, 12 20 50 PM

I recently lost one of the caps for my nearly new water jug.  A quick search showed me I could order a replacement cap (and spout) for $10!  I would never pay that kind of money for a few cents worth of plastic.  Instead of throwing away this really nice jugs I decided to design a replacement cap in Fusion 360 instead using the cap from my second can as a reference.  The water can in question is  this one which we purchased from Amazon:  http://amzn.to/29JFeCw

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Jayco X213 Solar Installation

A lot of the Sate and National park campgrounds we visit to do not have full-hookups or RV sites.  To counter this I wanted to make our camper a little more capable of boondocking  or dry camping.  The first upgrade that one can do is install some solar panels to keep the lights on, heater running and the water pumping. So I set out and did some research as to what others had done and how they had done it.  I settled on a Renogy 200W Monocrystalline Solar system to start with and can upgrade it trivially up to 400W with the addition of two more solar panels – which should still fit on my roof when done.

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Jayco X213 Pet Screen

Having a dog often results in a torn screen on the screen door of our camper.  So we looked around for different solutions to prevent this.  We wanted something that looked good and still allowed airflow.  We considered a sheet of Lexan, but this prevents airflow.  After searching around we found several companies selling screens that can screw on the door to protect them like this Camco Screen Door Grille or this slightly less expensive Camco Aluminum Screen Door Grille.  These solutions were expensive ($30-60) and really don’t look that great.  We also considered taking a $10 piece of metal expanded sheet and making a frame for that to screw or mount onto the door.  On our way to Home Depot to pick up the materials, we stopped at our local transfer station and found a damaged Safety 1st Bamboo Gate.  It had a nice bamboo frame and a light plastic grate.   It also happened to be the perfect size to fit on the door.

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Jayco X213 Bunk Ladder

I recently purchased a 2015 Jayco Jayfeather X213 Camper.  This trailer has the prefect sleeping configuration for our family with a King Size slide-out and 2 Bunks.  This allows us to setup and not have to break-down the table or convert a sofa for sleeping quarters for our two children every night.  The two bunks are nice but getting into them without assistance can be difficult for a child and downright impossible for an adult.  To remedy this situation I looked into several commercially available ladder solutions such as the following:

Stromberg Carlson (LA-460-B) Black 60″ Bunk Ladder

But at nearly $60.00 and made of ugly metal that didn’t match the interior of the camper I passed.  In addition this ladder was wider than it needed to be and needed to be fastened into one location.  I found several other options while searching the internet but none fit the bill so I sketched out what I wanted on paper and came up with the following requirements: Read more