Info & help on winterising / rapido 785f

[Poco Loco]

HI All, Being a new boy to this and slowly finding my feet I would be grateful of any help. I have read past Threads on Winterising and I am currently looking at a Rapido 785F. The floor underneath the chassis seems to be well insulated with thick foam and the only exposed parts seem to be the waste pipes and waste water tank. Although underslung does anyone know if the tank is insulated / heated? I know I can leave the drain pipe open to prevent freezing (I want to ski in the mountains) with an underslung tank, but i was wondering if the tank is made of an insulating material and not just thin plastic. Any further help or info on the rapido would be gratefully received. It is a 2003 model with approx' £28k miles. Regards poco Loco

 

[AndyC]

Unless you have electric hook up you won't want electrically heated tanks - too much power consumption. Even if the waste tank is insulated it will eventually freeze, at least partly. The best plan, for external waste tanks is, as you say, to leave the drain tap open and collect the waste water in a bucket.

Rapido have spec sheets for all previous models here: Rapido camping-car, France

They are in French I'm afraid, I can't find any English versions.

AndyC

 

[Poco Loco]

Thanks for the Info Andy. I've just bought my First French book, so it could be a bit of a struggle LOL. If it was in Spanish I'd stand more of a chance. There's always the Google Translator! Cheers Sigy

 

[caspar]

Your version isn't covered. The 790FF which I assume is a superior version has not got protection on the water tank mentioned, it just mentions capacity. Nor is it mentioned under the special features.

I knew that French would come in useful eventually!

 

[Deleted member 207]

A simple fix to insulating an exterior tank is to roughly make a thin plywood box about an inch bigger than the tank on each side and bottom - forget the top it will be too hard unless you can get the sides to match the floor profile. Use straps to hold it in place then fill the void with an aerosol can polystyrene foam. You might need to drill a few holes and fill from them - drill these before putting the box on the tank. Ideally the inside of the box will have "baffles" to stop the foam slumping to much.

External water pipes can be insulated using standard 1/2" pipe insulation with ends sealed off using duct tape.

The tap can be covered using a large plastic beaker, a small hinge and yet more ply foam.

A simple device - if you are old enough you may remember a little under engine kersosene heater that was popualr until the mid 1960s to keep an engine warm and oil thin in the winter months. I saw a few at car boot sales in the UK in 2008 - most of the sellers had no idea what they were for. The EVERWARM car engine heater