Forum Discussion

deltabravo's avatar
Jan 07, 2018

Upgraded to a removable marine style shore power cord

I have a small travel trailer.

Last summer I swapped out the flap and port hole for a removable power cord.

Why? To to keep critters out and make the cord entry weather tight.

Cord upgrade
  • I did the same thing with my clipper. Mostly because I keep it plugged in at home and if I need to drive it to work, I have to fuss with shoving the cord into the compartment. Now I just unplug at the clipper and drive away. I keep a second cord in the clipper for use when not at home.
  • I did the same thing this fall with outs. Got tired of busted knuckles trying to feed cold cord into that little mouse hole. Got tired of the cord getting tangled inside the compartment and having to gently yank the knot out past the hole. We keep our camper plugged in at home and do a couple colder weather fall trips every year and a trip to Florida every February. Got the kit on Amazon for a decent price and did the switch, much happier this way.
  • Hi,

    I simply cut the cord and put on a new male plug. Much cheaper. I added a female to the end of the cut off cord. Now I can replace easily with any standard RV cord.
  • I did that on my last TC, I just bought the plug and receptacle, cut the cord and wired to the receptacle and put the plug on the end of the old cord.

  • only one problem with the new plug and cord you bought and installed. one word. thieves. about a month ago someone posted that their kids did just what you did and went camping. someone stole their new cord, just walked up twisted it and walked off again.
  • I did the same with mine we had a rat get in our camper curl up and die while in storage. I looked high and low for where he could have gotten in from sealed up everything then saw the hole for the cord. Even with the plastic cover there is a gap. So I cut the cord. Tied a very nice plug in place even has a status light for the plug then made my current cord my shore power no regrets!
  • Great job and looks factory original. I did the identical thing on a previous TT and used a piece of 1/8" HDPE cutting board to cover the original mouse hole opening.

    Don't know about your TT, but I ended up with the original cord storage box being available for more storage space, and it was accessible via an existing exterior compartment door. Added bonus!

    I suppose theft could happen but I don't think it's that common. If someone really wants a cord they'll just use cutters anyway. We have a spare cord just in case but it also gets used once in a while as an extension cord by using an generator adapter to connect the two cords together.
  • My Chalet Takena came from the factory with one. As far as thieves, could use wire cutters on a standard cord.
  • That was one of the first modifications I did to my new Jay Flight 23RB. My last trailer I never did that, and I did have the wire get tangled up inside the storage box. Had to take the mouse hole off in order to get the wire out.

    So far, the Marinco kit has worked perfectly.