I have a Lance 2005 Max 981 camper and after eight years and 100,000 miles of heavy use, I have decided to rebuild the service bay. The main problem is that the panel is cracking and falling apart. I was delighted to find that Lance still had the part in stock and so I order it and it arrived a few days ago. Today I tackled the project and everything went very easily, it's just removing screws and bolt and drilling out some rivets, until I tried to remove the pull cables that operated the black and grey valves. It seems that the fitting that clamps them to the panel is swaged onto the end of the cable housing and maybe it might need to be disconnected from the valve end. I sure hope not since this would involve removing the belly panels and who know what else. Here are some pics to show you what I mean. I hope someone out there has done this and tell me the secret trick.
Finished this job up today. I rebuilt my service center yesterday. You will recall that when I dropped the belly panels, a peice of broken frame fell out. It was the front driver's side frame supporting the water and black tank. The welds at the top, bottom and side had all broken. The center verticle brace was also broken at the bottom weld. I repaired these using galvanized T and Angle brackets and self drilling hex heads. The locations were extremely tight so I drilled pilot holes with my Dremel with flex extension and then the self drilling bolts using a very small battery driver with as many as four driver extensions. Finally, just for insurance, I bolted a thick galvanized strap from the upper to the lower frame. I made a right angle on one end and a 90 degree twist to meet the lower frame. At one point, I thought that I would have to drop the tanks to do this repair, the dremel drill flex extention saved the day. Kind of like a dentist drill. I think that the set up is more solid than new. I screwed the belly panels back on and I will seal the joints later.
Spent most of the day rebuilding the service panel. I installed the new reinforced panel, replaced some crappy plastic water fittings with Shark bite bronze, insulated all of the water lines, glued in a liner of bubble wrap (old windshield sunscreen), installed a new outside shower. I will make some lables for the various valves. I am thinking about printing some decals for this, but I want something that will be water proof, maybe someone has a suggestion about this.
I will say that aluminum pop rivets are and portable drill/screw drivers are great inventions.
Tomorrow, I will tackle the broken frames holding up the water and black tanks. Here' the almost finished pic.
I will say that aluminum pop rivets are and portable drill/screw drivers are great inventions.
Tomorrow, I will tackle the broken frames holding up the water and black tanks. Here' the almost finished pic.
The saga continues..
When I left off yesterday, I was stumped on how to pull my old service panel with the valve cables. It turns out that this is very easy once you drop the eighth inch plywood bottom of the camper. There does not appear to be any caulking around these panels. I guess that it's just as well that they drain any water that might get in. This is a very easy job. There are about thirty small screws securing the ply to aluminum frame members. Once open, you can access the blade valves, an allen wrench and a phillips driver will disconnect the cable and housing so they may be pulled throught the service panel. I then reinforced the new panel with some aluminum angle stock and pop rivets. I was ready to finish the job and decided to check the welds on the frames supporting the fresh and black tanks. When I opened the bottom, part of the frame bracket fell out onto the ground - see photo. Two of the three verticle frame pieces in the front of the water tank had broken welds and were dangling uselessly. The horizontal frame members were all fine and looked like they had been machine welded, probably from a supplier. Their welds were perfect. The verticles were horrible spot welds. My camper is a 2005 which is the first or second year that Lance began using aluminum for frames. I hope that they have learned how to weld since then. There is no danger of the tank falling while the TC in on the truck, but pretty dicey off the truck. I can fix the one break with a screwed on plate, the other one is so hard to get to, I have not really figured out how to do it. I may just screw a metal strap to connect the top and bottom frame pieces.
I guess after all the years and miles, including lots of washboard and rough roads, this is to be expected, but the crappy spot welds are inexcusable from a company like Lance. I'll post some more pics of my fixes.
When I left off yesterday, I was stumped on how to pull my old service panel with the valve cables. It turns out that this is very easy once you drop the eighth inch plywood bottom of the camper. There does not appear to be any caulking around these panels. I guess that it's just as well that they drain any water that might get in. This is a very easy job. There are about thirty small screws securing the ply to aluminum frame members. Once open, you can access the blade valves, an allen wrench and a phillips driver will disconnect the cable and housing so they may be pulled throught the service panel. I then reinforced the new panel with some aluminum angle stock and pop rivets. I was ready to finish the job and decided to check the welds on the frames supporting the fresh and black tanks. When I opened the bottom, part of the frame bracket fell out onto the ground - see photo. Two of the three verticle frame pieces in the front of the water tank had broken welds and were dangling uselessly. The horizontal frame members were all fine and looked like they had been machine welded, probably from a supplier. Their welds were perfect. The verticles were horrible spot welds. My camper is a 2005 which is the first or second year that Lance began using aluminum for frames. I hope that they have learned how to weld since then. There is no danger of the tank falling while the TC in on the truck, but pretty dicey off the truck. I can fix the one break with a screwed on plate, the other one is so hard to get to, I have not really figured out how to do it. I may just screw a metal strap to connect the top and bottom frame pieces.
I guess after all the years and miles, including lots of washboard and rough roads, this is to be expected, but the crappy spot welds are inexcusable from a company like Lance. I'll post some more pics of my fixes.
