Do you own a Pioneer Camper Trailer?
And would like some of its pain points solved? Check out this video where we worked on our third Pioneer Camper Trailer.
To-Do List
It’s a gray Onyx this time with a slightly different kitchen. We’re going to work on mainly the gas quick connect at the back of the hot plates. They don’t make them any more, so we’re just taking that apart, putting in something with spare parts that are ready and available.
Also, we’re going to put in two gas bayonets inside the wet storage, which is underneath. One that’s going to shoot off to the side for the barbecue and the other one is just for the hot plates. And then we’re just going to put a new regulator at the front of the unit where the spare bottle is. The owner wanted to leave the original gas installation in place that only really feeds the hot water system.
Results
We have installed a new regulator with a flexible hose. So that’s mounted onto the bottle. The gas main is of course sleeved all the way under. The we have the wet storage where you’ve got the one bayonet for the barbecue on the left and then one on the right for the hot plates.
Barbecue
We show you in the video how to connect it up to the barbecue. All you need to do is unwind the hose and take the dust cap out and connect the hose onto the bayonet. No gas is going to come out of the hose when it’s not connected because it’s a quick release fitting. Then you just connect the other side onto the barbecue. It has another the quick release fitting that just slides on and your barbecue is ready for cooking with gas. It’s very easy.
Then to take it off, you just disconnect it and put on the dust cap. It’s always good to keep the sand and stuff out of it. You don’t want that going in your barbecue, like when you drop it. You just wind the hose up and keep knots out of it. Then you can put it on top of the barbecue.
Hot Plates
It has a different type of kitchen in comparison to other Pioneer Camper Trailers. So as you slide out the kitchen, there’s the hot plate and the old gas quick connect was on one side of the kitchen as you can see in the video. So you’d have to hook the hose on and then run the hose all the way to the LPG bottle with a really long hose. But the new gas quick connects are a little bit fatter and it was rubbing on the side of the shelf. So when you’d go to clip it in, it would grip and wouldn’t lock on properly.
We could face it straight down, but then it’s in the way of this mud guard, so we’re in a bit of a dilemma. The original position was also hard to get to once they swing the kitchen the other way, as you can see in the video. So what we ended up doing is just shifting it to the other side of the kitchen. We had to take the panel off the bottom and rejig it and re-weld underneath, but it’s a lot easier to hook onto now. You can see it doesn’t interfere with anything. The gas hose just sits at the top, so it’s a pretty good location.
To hook this up now, you just got to reach underneath to connect the hose to the hot plate bayonet. Take the dust cap out and put your plug in. Now remember, no gas is coming out because it uses a quick release fitting. Then you pop out the cap of the other side and plug it onto the hot plates. Very easy to do.
Then you open up the hot plates lid. Spark the ignition to give it a bit of gas and that’ll come through once the air is out of the hose. Once it’s lit, you can put your cup of tea on and start cooking. It’s also really easy to pack up. Just with your thumb on it, pop it off and then put the cap on. Then reach underneath again to unplug it from the bayonet and put that dust cap back on. And you can just lay your hose on top of the hot plates, rack it around the burners. It’s not going to touch anything.
Then we pack up the kitchen. Just lift up the hot plates and swing it back. You can see in the video how the gas quick connect for the hot plates doesn’t touch anything when it’s being moved. Then you lock it into place. And as we push the whole kitchen back in, it only has a couple of mils to spare, but it still works and not gets in the way of anything.
So if you’ve got one of these Pioneer Camper Trailers especially the Onyx, and you’ve got a few pain points that you want to solve, then give us a call and we’ll be happy to help. We’ve got a few other videos you can watch on our Camper/Caravan Gas Installation page.
