Spring Trip In Our New 550

T

Toby & Jen

Newbie
Toby and I just got our new 550 and had a great trip! Toby picked it up on a Friday and drove it back home to Oshkosh, WI. We left the next morning for a 7 night trip south to find warmer weather and biking trails.
First two nights at a state park at Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri--nice warm weather but the campsites are a little close together compared to Wisconsin state parks.
The next 4 nights were at Devils Den State Park in northwestern Arkansas, which was beautiful (Site 11 is right on the babbling river and was great). Lots of CCC buildings and cabins and hiking trails. The mountain bike trails are excellent and they are in the process of creating many more miles. As far as road biking--we should have left the road bikes at home! Nice quiet roads, but steep uphills for 1/2 to 1 mile followed by steep downhills made for a tough ride.
On the way home, we boondocked along the Mississippi and watched barges go down river--awesome! A conservation area about 20 miles south of Hannibal, MO.

The camper was so much fun after tenting for the past 50+ years. I can't believe how much room there is in the kitchen--we will have to upgrade from our backpacking kitchen equipment to fill it up. And a comfortable bed with reading lights!

The only problem occurred on our final stretch home--7 hours in heavy rain and wind. We didn't know until we unloaded that the cabin leaked and the bedding was soaked, even though we put in the condensation hole plugs. Toby washed the camper when we got home and no water leaked in--so must be road splash, wind and negative pressure?
Toby is working with Cary on this, but any other suggestions would be welcome. Have others had this problem? How can we fix it?

We are looking forward to many more trips and meeting other CampInn owners.
 
Toby & Jen said:
The only problem occurred on our final stretch home--7 hours in heavy rain and wind. We didn't know until we unloaded that the cabin leaked and the bedding was soaked, even though we put in the condensation hole plugs. Toby washed the camper when we got home and no water leaked in--so must be road splash, wind and negative pressure?
Toby is working with Cary on this, but any other suggestions would be welcome. Have others had this problem? How can we fix it?
Click to expand...

We've been through all the possibilities working to solve leaking issues while going down the road. Your idea about "negative pressure" is the key to the solution. Cary knows the answer so keep talking to him.

Robert Dickson
550 #645
58k miles, 240 nights
 
Toby & Jen said:
Have others had this problem? How can we fix it?
Click to expand...

We have had this issue and have also solved it with direction from Cary.

What we learned is that the actual source of the water entry is not the drain plug that is often referred to around here (at least, it wasn’t for us). Instead, Cary pointed us to the drains at the bottom of the windows. We also learned that this is usually only an issue with certain tow vehicles based on their wheel width and other variables. We learned that “more aggressive” SUVs produce the problem more frequency. What are you towing with? We use a 2018 Nissan Pathfinder.

Toby & Jen said:
we will have to upgrade from our backpacking kitchen equipment to fill it up.
Click to expand...

We had the same “problem!” Our car camping and backpacking stuff has for so long been weight and space-conscious. After a few trips with our 560 we realized that it made no sense not to have full size regular kitchen items in the galley. It makes cooking much more comfortable - and similar to cooking in our home kitchen.
 
Hi guys. Classic 550 -#543 here.
We had water under our mattress a couple years ago too and couldn’t figure where it was coming from. See photos.
It was leaking when we were driving in the rain or even wet pavement. This has been solved!
Craig suggested some caulking in the wheel wells, which I did. When that didn’t help, he started talking about the fantastic fan, which seemed strange…
Three things come together to make this leak:
- The camper is shaped like an airplane wing (talk to Cary who is a pilot). The air flowing over the camper roof has less pressure than the air inside the camper.
- The fantastic fan cover is only really tight down on the hinge side. The other side can be lifted up quite easily. This always happens when traveling at highway speed from the air flow. If air is flowing out the fan cover, then air has to come into the camper from somewhere. Door seals, window openings, anywhere.
- Our door seals had a gap at the bottom center of each door for some reason. The air being sucked in at that location is WATER. When driving in rain, you will always have a steady pool of water on the aluminum door sill below the rubber door seal. The water was being sucked up thru the 1/2” gap in the rubber seals and penetrating through the green canvass door skirt and going under the mattress. YIKES.
So…
- I made a clamp to hold down the passive side of the fan cover. See photos.
I removed one short fan screw and replaced it with a longer deck screw + a short piece of aluminum tubing (wind chime or hunting arrow) + a “turn buckle “ from the hardware store. See photos.
- I then closed the gap at the bottom center of our door seals so air or water can’t come in there.
I used ShoeGoo, works great. See photos.
After doing these two things - no problems, no water, no leaks.
But, always check in with CampInn headquarters. Craig and Cary may have come up with a better solution…
 

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Leaking like this must be fairly common when those three things come together all at once.
The lower pressure on the top side seems to actually open the galley if it’s not fully closed and locked, when traveling at highway speeds. I was reading some posts about that last night. One person said the lid opened so high it was propped open. We had our paper towels strung out once. Live and learn I guess.
 
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