As you might imagine, we’ve been fettling our new 550 to make it suit us.
It’s quite a list, but thankfully, mostly minor works.

The first on the list was to fit blown air; I’d overlooked this on the description from ALV what with all of the Trumatic this and Trumaheat that, so we were a little surprised when we couldn’t find the fan controls. After I had examined the vent flaps (yes, they’re all fitted) and discovered that they were all capped off, I set to fitting the Truma kit. The fan kit comes complete with the controls and cable and is simple enough to mount. The difficult part was routing the 65mm ducting. All of the internal panels have the cutouts and voids to route the ducting, but they’re obviously designed to be laid before the van is fitted out and already carry cables and water pipes, so I had to start playing with fish-wires to pull the duct through. The hardest part was the route between the seats at the front, because the water tank was covering the fixing screws. A bit of fiddling and jiggling plus a small cut with a buzz-cutter allowed me to get the duct through, along with a tee-piece for the existing nozzle in-between.
Because of the layout, I managed to connect all of the vents, including the bathroom vent, but I drew the line at trying to route under the bathroom to the front of the bed, and the bathroom vent is close enough anyway. So, job done in 1 day. That’s a result in my book.

There’s a boxed cableway down to the worktop near the bed, so this was ideal for a power socket (fancy having power at the back of the worktop!) and a USB point. Luckily, there was a spare mains connector when I looked at the back of the cupboard, and a 12v connector inside the locker door.

I’ve noticed whilst looking under the van that the Knott axle is a nice square shape, so making a perfect jacking area. I think that the floor of the van sits a bit higher on the Knott running gear, as my wheel covers (okay, foam interlocking mats) which were a perfect fit on the 530 now have a 3cm gap below the wheel arches. The external step which we use seems to be lower down from the door threshold. I’ve measured 44cm from floor to draught-panel slot. Has anyone got a measurement for the same on an ALKO chassis?

Big jobs for this weekend are wash/polish/protect and fit winter cover after applying Lanoguard to chassis, so I’m going to smell like a barnyard for a day or two! Wheels need removing for balancing while I’m under the van, and I’m going to apply red brake paint to the brake drums at the same time.

Steve.

Hi Colin,
The kit is 41240-01 for the version with the controls on top of the heater. There’s another version with the flush-mounting controls to mount in the panel work.
Cost around £240 from Caratech.Co.U.K
This kit only includes the fan, controller and connecting cable, not the ducting, vents, tees etc.

The bottom of the fan assembly sits around 160mm above the floor when fitted on an S3004 heater. Mounting is dead easy.

Roger, I’ll get some pictures after washing and polishing this weekend.👍

Steve.

Hi Inspecta

You are my hero - wish I had your skills..........................!

We fell into the same trap with our 540 which we ordered from AL some 8 years ago. We ordered all sorts of stuff but didn't realise that we also had to specify the warm air ducting to be fitted. I was perplexed when I first put the heater on to find nothing coming out of the ducts - a quick look under the bed explained why!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We decided we would have to do without it and have survived using our oil-filled rad and a fan heater, and it hasn't been an issue. However as father time has come sprinting after me these last couple of years I have found that the cold gets to me more. In York last week when we had some freezing fog I was bemoaning the missing ducting once more. I didn't realise it could be retro fitted

I might have a chat with my new caravan serviceman to see if it is something he could do and get a costing.

Of course I look forward to Colin telling me he has done it to his van in an afternoon

Cheers
Mike

Mike, the fitting for under the bed would be a doddle; very similar installation to what was in our 530 dinette version.
The difficulty would be in getting it routed to the washroom and front dinette, as it has to pass over the wheel arch and under the shower tray.
If you do fancy fitting it to the rear only, I can post a diagram of the routing under the bed/seats, or I’m sure a 540 owner would send photos.
Steve.

Roger,
Luckily Jan had taken the internal photos on a brighter day.

Thanks for deleting the duplicate download btw., I couldn’t find how. Obvs needed an admin’s touch! 🙂

Hi Colin,
The blinds are a great update.

No Zebras were injured in the taking of the photos.