Camper Mod Contest Entries

Kitchen Basin: From Agitation to Elation

Welcome to the sixth entry in October’s Medium Mod-Ster Contest.  One Medium Mod will be published in every Email Alert in October.  At the end of the month we’ll hold a reader vote to determine October’s winner.  For information about the Mod-Ster Contest, including how to enter, click here.

Bruce and Kathy Allison
Kitchen Basin: From Agitation to Elation
2017 Ram 3500
2012 Adventurer 910 FBS

After almost six-years, my wife, Kathy, decided she’d had enough of the original acrylic double sink that came with our 2012 Adventurer 910 FBS truck camper.

Along with preferring the look of a stainless steel basin, she also wanted the features of a single-lever water control for one-handed operation, along with a retractable spray head to put the water where it’s wanted.  The bigger, single basin design also makes washing large pans less of a water-splashing-all-over affair compared to the old sink.

At first I didn’t realize that I also wanted those exact features but, like many (most) things in my life, once Kathy very slowly and carefully explained to me how this mod would simplify our kitchen chore lives, I 100-percent agreed with her.  The fact that she was holding a cast iron skillet menacingly in her hand at the time had nothing to do with my acceptance… honest.

So it came to be that a perfectly fine Spring weekend was… ah… ruined is perhaps too strong a word… ”rescheduled” to include a truck camper medium mod.  Here’s the before photo of what I had mistaken for a perfectly serviceable sink.  What could I have been thinking?

Old Camper Sink

My first job was to remove that obvious pile of junk along with the attending hoses and drain.

Camper Sink Hole And Plumbing

Next, since the new sink was larger, the large hole in the counter needed “larger-ing” (to use a professional general contractor term).  The countertop finish was protected from my tools of destruction by blue painters tape, and the outline of where we wanted the new basin was drawn with a fine pen.

Care should be taken at this point to be certain that the hole that you’re enlarging doesn’t extend past the shelf walls below.  The countertop overhangs the shelf walls, so this would be a disaster if you cut the countertop and found you had a partial piece of sink now glaringly sticking out of your cabinets below the counter. Not that anything like that came close to occurring in our installation… no, nope, never.

Now that your counter hole is correctly marked with the fancy blue tape, take your trusty sawdusty jig saw, and with proper eye protection, carefully make your cuts.  Remember, safety third!

Camper Sink Shaving Countertop

The test fit looks good, and I still have the use of my eyes!

Painters Tape Around Camper Sink

Now remove the sink basin and mount your faucet onto it.  Check the connections from truck camper to the new faucet and prepare to go to the local hardware store for adapters if (and I actually mean when) you discover that the fittings involved are completely incompatible with each other.

Also check the new drain location.  We needed a drain extension from the hardware store to reach to the existing drain trap.  We were fortunate that the trap itself could be easily rotated to a position underneath the new sink drain location.

Camper's Sink Plumbing

Next, remove the blue tape from the countertop, and roll your own… roll your own plumbing putty that is.  This is to seal the sink to the counter so that no water or small crumbs get trapped under the lip of the sink.

Camper Sink Plumber Putty

Once you roll the putty into a rope-like configuration, it should look like this.  Ready to install the sink!

Camper Sink Has Putty

The sink itself will come with specific clamps to hold it down onto the counter.  These are easy to install in the very limited space underneath the typical RV counter…not!

A few, okay, maybe more than a few, choice words later… voila!  Kathy’s vision of her dream sink had appeared.

Camper Sink High Faucet

This mod was $300 including putty, fittings and drain extension.  This was our very first sink replacement of any sort and was hard for us, but most handy human beings would probably consider it on the easy side of medium difficulty.  Your mileage may vary.

Disclaimer: The modifications above are submitted by Truck Camper Magazine readers. It is your responsibility to make sure that any do-it-yourself modification project you undertake is safe, effective, and legal for your situation.

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If you’d like to enter a modification you’ve done on your truck camper, click here. You can enter as many mods as you want, at any time.  Good luck mod makers!

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