2018 Whitehawk 31BH - Breaking in and some mods

[Dave.H]

Hi all. I just figured I'd share my experience this far with our new 31BH. We've had it now about 3 weeks. Spent one weekend in it and this week I took it out for 4 nights to see if anything shook loose.

So far so good. A couple minor things but nothing that I haven't been able to deal with. Slideout still needs some vertical adjustment.

We came from a Class C with hydraulic leveling system. I installed the LevelMatePro and bought the Andersen levelers. I'm impressed. Glad I found this forum so I could find those.

A couple other things I added I'd like to share and provide my feedback on. Coming from a Class C, we had a lot of outside storage. Therefore I have a lot of tools and such I prefer to be accessible outside the camper. I added two storage accessories that I think are very helpful.

First I added a truck bed tool box to the tongue. I had to get one that tapered at the bottom to fit around the weight distribution hitch setup. I moved the battery inside the tool box. It's a great place for storage. While moving the battery I also removed the crappy unsealed wire nuts and replaced them with sealed connectors. Removed the 30amp fuse and put in a waterproof marine grade breaker. I also had to remove the plastic propane tank cover.

In addition to the toolbox I added the Lippert under chassis storage. I have mixed feelings on this. The install was easy and the frame itself is very nice and well built. But the bins are just absolute crap. It's a great place to store things you don't mind getting wet. Levelers, wheel chocks, black/grey tank cleaning equipment. The boxes are really crappy molded plastic. They are rated for 100lbs but I can't see them holding up long with that! I see some metal boxes getting fabricated in my future.

[Dave.H]

One thing I still haven't figured out is our bike rack. I have a heavy duty rack that I love and will not be getting rid of. Its a hitch mount. I'm pretty confident in fabricating a solid hitch for the back of this thing, but I'd like to figure out a way then to also tie the upper portion of the bike rack into the camper to keep it from shaking too back.

Not my photo but the rack holds the bikes vertically like so. It's potentially a lot of leverage on the frame. I can cross brace the hitch, but it would be nice to tie the upper portion of the rack into the trailer so that it is not acting as a lever.

Does anyone have any experience/ideas on this? I'm not opposed to drilling holes. I've thought about reaching out to Jayco to see if I can get prints on how the back wall is made and see if there is anything structural I can tie into.

[Mew0050]

How’s your under Chassis system holding up? My eagle HT is severely lacking in outdoor storage, I’m very close to pulling trigger on this set up. How was the install?

[Dave.H]

Originally Posted by Mew0050

How’s your under Chassis system holding up? My eagle HT is severely lacking in outdoor storage, I’m very close to pulling trigger on this set up. How was the install?

It's great. I still think it's way overpriced. Anything in it will get wet. But it works well. The bins could be way bigger and sturdier. But it works well. Great for sewage stuff and wheel chocks and jack pads.