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Gaslow (etc) fIller mounting position?

8K views 45 replies 12 participants last post by  DJMotorhomer 
#1 ·
New motorhome, and I’m missing the refillable gas bottles already - so it’s time to get the drill out :rolleyes::rolleyes:

I don’t particularly want to mount the filler point inside the locker, and there isn’t an obvious place to put it externally (other than in the gas locker door itself). We have a secumotion regulator etc - so limited need to open the locker door.

I’ve seen advice in a number of places about not mounting the fill point in the locker door due to the potential stress when opening and closing said door. Given that the only times the door would need to be opened are at fill up and Eurotunnel boarding, and providing care is taken when opening and closing the door, and the hose connecting the fill point to the cylinders is long enough - is this a definite no, or a proceed with caution?

In the last week or two, I’ve seen three motorhomes with fill points in their gas locker doors . . .

All advice and thoughts gratefully received.


Thanks,
John
 
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#2 ·
Ours is mounted in the skirt, just below and to the left of the locker so that the feed hose goes through the locker wall to the fill point,Netherlands skirt is fairly easy to use as there are no delicate parts behind it if care is taken as regards positioning to avoid cross members etc.

That way our door only needs to be opened when needed and then there are no strains on the connecting hose or joints.

That was our choice and it works for us.
 
#3 ·
Ours is mounted on the sidewall next to the gas locker door. This alleviates any worries about stressing the filler pipework.
You do need to have space between the locker door and end of gas locker to fit the filler. I’ve obtained, off t’internet, a smart ‘autogas’ label that curves round the filler cap which keeps jobsworthies at bay. Makes filling with gas as quick and easy as filling with diesel.
 

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#4 ·
Our filler point is mounted in the skirt just below and forward of the gas locker.


The skirt is alloy, so needed a lot of cutting with circular bit, but it is a secure mounting with little movement, so did not require a backing plate or re-inforcement, which might be a good idea if the material affixed to is weak/flexible.


Geoff
 
#5 ·
Thanks everyone - helpful as always. Our locker door is the same size as the locker behind it - so I would have to take the fill hose through the side of the locker before exiting through the outer bodywork. The locker is just aft of the front offside wheel, so I’ll have to do some more investigation as to what is behind the bodywork aft of the locker. Or I could go down through the floor of the locker and out through the (alloy) skirt. The latter sounds more promising - I’ll report back when I’ve had a good look in daylight (tomorrow).

The skirt is slightly curved (top to bottom) - will I have problems getting the fIller to sit properly on the curve?


Regards,
John
 
#6 ·
Our skirt is slightly curved and it does not seem to cause any problems, good luck, feel free to post some pics if you would like the considered opinions of others that have been there and done it. We chose to go out through the side of the locker box which is a plastic entity and was dead simple to go through.

The most nervy part was cutting the hole in the skirt - that takes great big brass one's..... and a suitable hole cutter of course (aka "the other half" ). 🤔
 
#10 ·
Liks Spacerunner, I have a space inside the locker beside the door to have the filler on this van, but on other vans, I get a longer filler pipe (which also needs changing just like the orange Calor cylinder pipes) there is a part which fits around the pipe to prevent chafing and go through the floor to the valance.

You can also get a 10mm plastic coated pipe to allow the filler to be on the opposite side of the van.
 
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#11 ·
Mine is also skirt mounted on a slight curve"

Terry
 

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#12 ·
Mine is also on the skirt. The only thing that concerned me is the section of hose that runs from the back of the filler into the locker is exposed to all the crap from the road but its been there over ten years and so far no problems. The skirt does flex a bit when you put a heavy hose on so some care needs to be taken filling.
 
#13 ·
Firstly, thanks to everyone for their input - especially for the pictures.

I’ve taken a few pictures and had a general look around the gas locker area. There does appear to be a potential void between the gas locker and the under seat locker (above the orange side marker light) - but when viewed from inside, there is a heating pipe going into that area. I had a quick go at removing the side of the locker to see if I could get a better view - but it wouldn’t budge with the amount of force I was prepared to use (having removed the 2 visible screws and 3 concealed ones). Not sure I’d fancy cutting into that without knowing what is behind there.

Going out through the ventilation mesh at the bottom of the locker and then through the skirt seems favourite at the moment. There is a deflection plate under the front of the drop hole (presumably to provide some measure of avoiding stuff being thrown up into the locker from the nearby front wheel). This plate would give a small amount of protection to the fIller hose if I take this option.

Another future challenge that I will need to consider is the access to the fuses - accessed by removing the see through panel between the upper and lower gas bottle restraining points (I’m guessing they are part of the chassis electrics - easily accessed under the drivers seat on a Sprinter van, not so easy on an A class with no door). There is no obvious other access to these fuses - so replacing a fuse will entail taking the gas bottles out.

I’m pretty sure that I can think about this for a bit longer - anything to avoid getting the drill out
:smile2:


Regards,
John
 

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#16 ·
Firstly, thanks to everyone for their input - especially for the pictures.

I've taken a few pictures and had a general look around the gas locker area. There does appear to be a potential void between the gas locker and the under seat locker (above the orange side marker light) - but when viewed from inside, there is a heating pipe going into that area. I had a quick go at removing the side of the locker to see if I could get a better view - but it wouldn't budge with the amount of force I was prepared to use (having removed the 2 visible screws and 3 concealed ones). Not sure I'd fancy cutting into that without knowing what is behind there.

Going out through the ventilation mesh at the bottom of the locker and then through the skirt seems favourite at the moment. There is a deflection plate under the front of the drop hole (presumably to provide some measure of avoiding stuff being thrown up into the locker from the nearby front wheel). This plate would give a small amount of protection to the fIller hose if I take this option.

Another future challenge that I will need to consider is the access to the fuses - accessed by removing the see through panel between the upper and lower gas bottle restraining points (I'm guessing they are part of the chassis electrics - easily accessed under the drivers seat on a Sprinter van, not so easy on an A class with no door). There is no obvious other access to these fuses - so replacing a fuse will entail taking the gas bottles out.

I'm pretty sure that I can think about this for a bit longer - anything to avoid getting the drill out
:smile2:

Regards,
John
Re your proposed plan, I'd not go through the meshed hole, it is a drop out vent, putting a 25mm hose through it would severely limit its function and stop gas escaping, I would drill a hole and use this to protect the filler pipe from chafing as you bounce down the road.

https://www.gasit.co.uk/leisure-gas...nk-accessories/30mm-vent-hose-connection.html

I am alarmed at hearing you have access through the gas locker to the fuses, hopefully, the panel is fully gas-tight, as if you do get a leak and also blow a fuse, you would be needing a new van.
 
#14 ·
New motorhome, and I'm missing the refillable gas bottles already - so it's time to get the drill out :rolleyes::rolleyes:

I don't particularly want to mount the filler point inside the locker, and there isn't an obvious place to put it externally (other than in the gas locker door itself). We have a secumotion regulator etc - so limited need to open the locker door.

I've seen advice in a number of places about not mounting the fill point in the locker door due to the potential stress when opening and closing said door. Given that the only times the door would need to be opened are at fill up and Eurotunnel boarding, and providing care is taken when opening and closing the door, and the hose connecting the fill point to the cylinders is long enough - is this a definite no, or a proceed with caution?

In the last week or two, I've seen three motorhomes with fill points in their gas locker doors . . .

All advice and thoughts gratefully received.

Thanks,
John
Ours is fitted in the bodywork to the right of the locker door. It was put there by an NCC accredited person and it is great.

Dave
 
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#15 ·
I fitted our filler inside the locker six years ago and have had no problems at home or abroad with anyone questioning its positioning - cheaper and easily done without cutting.

The last person to fill the bottles was an attendant at E.Leclerc in Boulogne earlier this year - we couldn't get the machine to work and she came over muttering about 'bloody rosbifs' and filled the bottles for us.
 

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#17 ·
I fitted our filler inside the locker six years ago and have had no problems at home or abroad with anyone questioning its positioning - cheaper and easily done without cutting.

The last person to fill the bottles was an attendant at E.Leclerc in Boulogne earlier this year - we couldn't get the machine to work and she came over muttering about 'bloody rosbifs' and filled the bottles for us.
Thanks for this - the more I think about actually getting the drill out and cutting any sort of hole, the further away from reasonable my personal dislike of mounting the fIller internally seems to be . . .

Another couple of days and I may well come to the conclusion that an internally mounted fIller is what I wanted all along :wink2:

Regards,
John
 
#20 ·
I am VERY surprised that Francis can get away with fitting them there since surely the purpose of the gas locker box is to isolate the gas supply from any potential spark source and having fuses BEHIND gas cylinders would not do that......

Moving that fuse block away from the locker would be something that I would be asking the manufacturer about......

If your vehicle is new, then VOSA may wish to have an input into what must surely be a potentially dangerous location ?
 
#21 ·
It is new, we've had it for just over a month - and I will contact Frankia to see what they may have to say about it. I'm reasonably confident that they will have taken enough care when assembling the vehicle to ensure that the seal between the fuses and gas locker is adequate. I'm less confident that the seal would still be good enough once the panel has been removed and refitted if a fuse ever needs to be replaced. I'm very doubtful it would survive repeated removals and replacements - though I haven't taken the panel off to actually see what the seal is made of.

I've looked carefully at the various user manuals - the Frankia specific stuff doesn't mention these fuses (hardly surprising given that they are chassis related). The Mercedes stuff refers to a sprinter van, and mentions the fuses as being under the drivers seat and accessed via a panel when the drivers door is open (not particularly relevant on a rhd A class motorhome). I think that Frankia should at the very least draw attention to the importance of the seal when refitting the cover to the fuse box - better still they would have re-located that block of fuses (heaven knows there are enough fuses in various locations throughout the vehicle).

I've looked at dozens of new and used motorhomes over the last couple of years - and got close to buying at least three different ones - but I don't recall paying much attention to the gas bottle locker on any of them (including this one).

Regards,
John
 
#23 ·
I can't see why you cant put it in the door? The ones I've seen have a right angle hose joint on the back of the door so the hose goes sideways which allows the door to open freely. Particularly if you only use a single tank there should be room? Maybe put the tank on the other mount so the hose could loop around the right side then back to the tank?
 
#24 ·
A filler in the door would stop me buying a van, it smacks of laziness and corner-cutting and I would wonder what other bodges and shortcuts were waiting to get me down the line.
 
#28 ·
The pressure on a SOG system is from a PC fan so not quite the same Jean, and a Gas filler hose is under no pressure once the filling stops.
 
#30 ·
Well, just in case anyone is interested in what happened next - I had refillables professionally fitted as shown below. I probably could have done it myself, but chose to let a professional do it for the peace of mind it gives to Mrs O. I’m happy if she’s happy.

Whilst there may be enough strength in the skirt to support the fIller, i preferred the option to keep it all contained within the existing locker. The angled connector on the fIller combined with the longer hose and it’s routing ensures no strain when opening and closing the door.

Thanks again to everyone for your input.


Regards,
John
 

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#31 ·
I was intending to mount as Ozzyjohn has had done, but the retailer convinced me to install in the skirt. I haven't done it yet, but the skirt seems a flimsy place on my Hymer and awkward to get to. I'll be considering the door, but mine opens up, so I'm not sure.
 
#35 ·
I was intending to mount as Ozzyjohn has had done, but the retailer convinced me to install in the skirt. I haven't done it yet, but the skirt seems a flimsy place on my Hymer and awkward to get to. I'll be considering the door, but mine opens up, so I'm not sure.
I am surprised you say flimsy. Is it plastic of some sort. On our N&B Arto (2003) the skirt is alloy and it took a lot of drilling to get the hole-cutter through it.

Maybe N&B were built differently or maybe they all were 16 years ago.

Geoff
 
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