Rotating the Dinette Bench

We never liked that the dinette bench protruded into the hallway, taking up aisle space, and making it difficult for two people to move around in the van fluidly. So after seeing someone in the Revel group rotate their dinette bench, we knew we had to do it. It's a big job, and can be pretty expensive, but it's turned out to be one of our favorite mods ever.

The work was performed by Tony & Wanda Loeza, at San Carlos German Motor Works. Tony found the job to be much easier if the electrical system has already been converted to lithium, as shown below.

We added a Lagun table, and are still working on the right tabletop. The old table is shown here for testing purposes.

One of the primary drivers for this was my wife's yoga practice. Opening up the aisle gives her much more room for her morning practice.

Keep in mind that this mod removes the seat belts, leaving a square hole in the floor from their previous mounting point. We patched it with aa piece of flooring from under the bench.

One of Tony's professional touches was to add a backboard with matching grey vinyl for supporting the back cushion.

Finally, we were extremely glad to see that our 12" subwoofer fits in the gap perfectly, like a puzzle piece.

I applied some iron-on edge banding to the wall that was trimmed, and it looks pretty close to Winnebago's fit & finish.

17-June-2021

Lithium Conversion

After 4 years with the original AGM batteries, it was becoming clear that we would need to replace them before our 5th winter. After considering our options, we decided to purchase the RoamRig system to convert our coach's power system from AGM to lithium. We started with Stage 1, and will monitor our usage for a year or so to see if we need to add more storage or charging capacity. With Stage 1, we are more than quadrupling our storage capacity, so this will allow us to use the van a bit differently than before. (Update Sept 2021: without a 2nd, dedicated alternator, our Sprinter alternator recharges our Stage 1 batteries at 9.25% per hour of driving. Solar also contributes to this in some small amount as well.)

The dinette bench is markedly cleaner, and built in a steel frame, as opposed to the wood & staples box that originally comprised it.

The new instrument panel is far superior to the hodge-podge from before. However, the items in red are inconsistent, so I'm going to fix that in the coming months.

07-May-2021

Bench Rotation and Battery Upgrade

Ralph Hill from the Revel group on Facebook has created a detailed description of rotating the bench seat and installing a new lithium system in his 2018 Revel. Download the full document here. (Link to Facebook post is here).

Well done, Ralph, and thank you!