montanaourwaywinter06

Montana Improvements Winter 2006

While we stayed at Bentsen Palms Village park in January, February and March of 2006 Al and I made a number of improvements to our Montana. We cannot take full credit for coming up with these ideas, as some of them were shared with us by other Montana owners. Sharing ideas for improving our Montanas is one of the great parts of belonging to the Montana Owners Club, an online forum.

So, lets start with the bike stand. Thanks to many MOC members, including, but not limited to John C. and John B. for the time spent measuring, knocking heads (ouch John C.) and conferring on this stand. Al built it in such a way that it comes apart (4 sections, I need to get a photo of that sometime) and he can put some water in the bottom to give it a bit more substance/stability. Because it is built from PVC pipe, it is very lightweight to store, and because it comes apart, it is very easy to store in the basement of our Montana. The bikes stood in this through some pretty stiff breezes, about 45 MPH stuff, did not seem to matter which way the wind was coming, south, east, north, south.

Here is the bike stand when broken down.
These parts store very easily in the basement of our Montana.

Another improvement was to paper the inside of the glass cabinet doors. Our thanks to Vicki R. and Bill and Ann for showing us this improvement. Vicki R. used black construction paper, Bill and Ann used white poster board. We used a combination of light gold colored drawing paper and poster board. Vicki attached her black construction paper with scotch tape, for ease of installation and possible future adjustments. Bill attached his poster board with a bit of silicone caulk. I hot glued the paper and the poster board together and then hot glued them into the backs of the glass portion of the doors. I added the poster board because the drawing paper I used, even though I was fond of the color, was pathetically thin, and I figured one trip down the road, anything bouncing, or rubbing was going to make a mess of the paper and I would be redoing the paper. The poster board is thick enough to protect my thin drawing paper. As you can see when you put up the paper you can no longer see whatever you might have stashed in that cupboard. I also like the way it enhances the design on the glass. Al and I have come to appreciate the fact that the paper hides any clutter in the cupboards. And, yes, my cupboards do look cluttered, just cause they are full of "stuff". HAHA (Not sure why the color difference in the doors here, probably the light on each when we took the photos. But you can get the idea.)

Another improvement Al did was to add high intensity driving lights to the step area of Montana. Lights were purchased at an auto supply store. The photo only shows one side of the step, there is a light on the opposite side as well. (The arrow points at the light.) These can be used to light up the ground area around Montana, and hope that we can use them instead of the scare lights. Al has the switch inside Montana. The lights can be adjusted to point in different directions.

This special improvement comes to us via Steve R & Vicki, and Norm Kwist (Norm is a MOC member as well) . This allows the screen door to be opened by pushing on the little white knob, which pushes on the clothes hanger which is attached to the flipper. Once installed you no longer have to slide the solid slider back and forth to get to the flipper. (See 2nd photo below, from the outside view) This helps with keeping bugs out, and hopefully we never forget to close that slider again! Works from both the inside and outside. This was a popular improvement at BPV in Winter 06, several other MOC members adapted it as well,all with their own twist, some used bike spokes for example instead of a clothes hanger. This is ONE slick little improvement, thanks Norm, Steve and Vicki for sharing it with us.