Kodiak Cub

[Kodiak Flagg]

Hello All,

We purchased a 2019 Kodiak Cub 175BH a couple months ago and I've been playing with it and dreaming about all the Mods. I'm prepping to move across country with my family of 4 and the dog. I love the idea of off-grid camping and full hook-up camping.

1st question: Anyone have a good idea where I can find a wiring diagram of the Cub? The dealer is knowledgeable on trailers but cannot get me the full diagram. I want to do a couple things:

a) Add tank heating pads (The bottom is already sealed but not heated).
b) Add a switch to the control panel to turn on/off the heating pads.
c) Add a switch to turn on/off the outside speakers. We realized one day that when we hooked up to the stereo we could easily hear it inside and the neighborhood heard it thru the outside speakers.
d) Add another battery (for the off grid times).

That's jus the start. Have a great day!

 

[ArmyVeteran]

Hello All,

We purchased a 2019 Kodiak Cub 175BH a couple months ago and I've been playing with it and dreaming about all the Mods. I'm prepping to move across country with my family of 4 and the dog. I love the idea of off-grid camping and full hook-up camping.

1st question: Anyone have a good idea where I can find a wiring diagram of the Cub? The dealer is knowledgeable on trailers but cannot get me the full diagram. I want to do a couple things:

a) Add tank heating pads (The bottom is already sealed but not heated).
b) Add a switch to the control panel to turn on/off the heating pads.
c) Add a switch to turn on/off the outside speakers. We realized one day that when we hooked up to the stereo we could easily hear it inside and the neighborhood heard it thru the outside speakers.
d) Add another battery (for the off grid times).

That's jus the start. Have a great day!

Best as I can figure. There are no drawings/schematics available to the buying public from Dutchman. Having said that. Someone on here did manage to coerce his dealer into getting drawings. Supposedly


As to your outside speakers. If its the standard furrion radio/dvd player. It actually has buttons to turn on and off the outside and inside speakers. Try the ZONE buttons.



Im sure someone else will chime in with more info.


Have fun
Bill

 

[Franktafl]

Hello Kodiak, Welcome to the forum. The things you are asking are NOT really difficult to do. Bill is correct about the zone switch on the radio, it should be either listed A or/and B or 1 or/and 2. if you punch the zone button and the inside ones go off, then you have it. Mine is one of the furrion's and it controls the outside speakers through that little button.

Putting the heating pads on should be pretty straight forward since ALL connections go through your inverter located near your fuse panel and wiring into that panel is relatively easy. Adding the switches will require a little craftwork but not something that you should be afraid of.

ALL of us here are willing to lend expertise.

 

[persistent]

I have a Kodiak Cub. Frank is right it can be switched from the front panel.
I have also heated the underbelly. The dealer I bought it from did $2200 worth of mods in the belly including adding tank heaters to the three tanks. I did months of additional work to get the on board propane furnace to heat the underbelly.
The tanks and plumbing have been tested down to less than 10 degrees and they do not freeze now.
However, I have not figured how to keep the two dump valves from freezing. Antifreeze does not work and I struggle to design an enclosure to protect the valves. I am thinking about elbow and or pipe heaters. Attaching a hinged cover over each valve may be necessary.

The underbelly needs to be sealed first. Otherwise the wind just blows through the cracks. I have the rear dinette model. It has sink supply line and drain running under there. It froze at 29 degrees after less than 2 hours without the sealing and insulating.
Next, isolate the sections that need to be kept warm and insulate the bottom surface and sides of the space.
The tank heater are peal and stick. The dealer installed standard 115 volt outlets, one for each tank near each tank. The outlets are connected to standard 115 volt light switches mounted in the side of the dinette seat. From there to the air conditioning circuit breaker in the service entrance. You probably won't use the AC at the same time you use the tank heaters.
Getting air from the furnace in there is a whole story in itself and requires minor modifications to the furnace.

Good luck with your mods!

 

[persistent]

Check out your steel wheel wells

I forgot to add, check out the steel wheel wells under your cabinets. Mine were not insulated. One wheel well was in the plumbing cabinet. The water pump was in there. The other wheel well was under the kitchen sink. I insulated both.

I had to replace the water pump. I think it was frozen before I got it but warranty was refused.

 

[leisuresolar@gmail.com]

12VDC battery heaters

I recently installed a solar system and tank heaters on a Kodiak Cub, and here is what I found.

1) It did not have a 120VAC inverter from the factory, and the owner did not want one. So we installed 12VDC tank heaters (Ultraheat) instead of the usual 120VAC heaters. This has the small advantage that the heaters will still work while you are driving and not connected to shore power. The heaters have a total draw of about 13A. Since the truck 7-way plug only supplies <10A (usually more like 5-8) they draw down the trailer battery by 3-5A while driving.
2) To counteract this, we used two 100AH Lithium batteries on the tongue. This gives him lots of 12V power with VERY light weight (<60#). These lithium batteries will last 10 years or more.
3) The dump valves are NOT tucked up under the belly insulation. So we had to add Ultraheat pipe and valve heaters. They draw another 8A from the batteries. It was not simple to build a usable box around them, but we eventually figured it out. The dual lithium batteries are now more needed than ever!
4) Since the tank heaters use a combined 21A DC, we found an unused 30A DC circuit in the panel and wired them to that using 10AWG wire. It is my understanding that some Cubs don't have an extra 12V DC circuit in the panel, so you could wire it directly to the 12V lines into the panel using an inline 30A fuse. DO NOT EVER WIRE ANYTHING TO 12V WITHOUT THE APPROPRIATE FUSE. It was not difficult to route the wire to a switch a few feet above the breaker panel. We simply used a 30A rated Automotive toggle switch (lighted) . Routing the wire back down to the tank heaters required drilling a hole in the floor behind the WFCO panel, then sealing it.
5) The standard WFCO 8700 power converter in this Cub was 35A, not enough for all the 12VDC heaters, so we upgraded it to a 45A Power Dynamics converter. The biggest converter from WFCO for this panel was 40A, which is why we went with the Power Dynamics. For a few bucks more, we could have gone with the 65A converter, but decided it was not needed.
6) Since he is often cold weather camping, we also added 12V battery heaters with a switch. They draw 4A. We connected these directly to the batteries with a 15A fuse. We wrapped the battery box in Reflectix and glued and stitched it on for extra insulation. Batteries really work better when slightly warmed. Lithium likes to be between 40-60F, lead acid likes between 50-80F. Below 32F, he simply flips the switch to keep the batteries warm. He must remember to turn it off when above 40F.
7) All this 12V DC draw is somewhat mitigated by two 170W solar panels, one on the roof and one portable that can be set 50' away for when he parks in the shade. We use a Victron MPPT solar charge controller.

Hope this is helpful.