It's Curtains for the Travato!

No, we didn't do the van in.  I'm talking about window coverings!

The stock cab window coverings in the Winnebago Travato are kind of fiddly and a bit of a PITA.  They are not very blackout, plus the mouse-fur material doesn't look like it will hold up very well.  The side window covers are held with magnets (not a bad setup) but the windshield cover is a big piece that has to be unfolded, fit in the window, and then fished under the sun visors and velcroed.   I really don't like all that, plus it's not very "stealth" if you know what I mean.

So I decided to make a curtain to close off the cab.  Well, I had the idea anyways. The sewing was graciously done by my long suffering sister.

First I ordered a black-out type curtain.  Wanted something (a) cheap and (b) durable material and (c) big enough to make this an easy project.  So I settled on this from Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004AKG3TI/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

At 100" wide, and 95" tall, it should be big enough to do the job and maybe have enough left over to do the rear window.   It's 100% poly and fully black-out.  We cut it down to 66" tall and hemmed it.  The remaining 29" (with the grommets), we added an 8" piece of fabric to the bottom and fashioned a curtain for the rear windows.

My plan was to attach this panel to the bulkhead at the rear of the cab.  The top surface is a hard plastic and would be a good host for a strip of velco.  A matching strip would be attached to the curtain panel and a bit down the sides.   Easy off and easy on.

So here it is attached to one side of the cab:

Of course you don't have to hang it there, you can always just take it off, fold it up and store it in the bin above the cab.

Here it is attached all the way across - note I left the width at 100" so I'd have a bit of material to work with in the next step.

Here's how it looks outside:

Not too bad, huh?  We made a single panel curtain for the back windows that I can hang with a bungee or expanding rod.  Not sure though.  The stock window covering work pretty well and are held in easy with magnets.  They are white though, so you see white in the windows from the outside of the van.  Black would be better.

My thoughts were to have enough material to drape it over the captains chairs if I wanted to use them while "stealth" parked.

This still needs some work - I will probably sew some loops in the backside of the curtain so a small bungee could attach it somehow to the sunvisors - thus getting it off the chairs and giving you some headroom.

Outside looks kinda disturbing set up this way.

So far, I'm happy with how this turned out.  It may need a bit of refinement, but doesn't everything?

I also tackled a couple more projects as well.  I found a couple locations to install Valterra tubes to house my coil hose and an extra sewer hose.

There is a spot between the rear bumper/trailer hitch and the black tank.  You just wedge the tube in there and it's done:

The other I hung from the roof rack with zip ties.  Nice thing about these two items is that they are easily removed if you change your mind.

The last thing I did was add door edge strips.  They are just clear plastic mouldings with an adhesive strip inside.  You just stick them on the door edge.   In the back, this is important as the unknowing could shut the doors in the wrong order and slam the the door lock mechanism into the delicate paint.

You can get them on Amazon for $4 - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001EA0LVS/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

That's it for now.  Next up is a battery project that is still in the planning stages. Stay tuned!