The first camp I did with the Pando was in near freezing weather and I hadn’t fully connected the AC causing one heck of a draft. Although I don’t see myself camping in freezing temperatures a lot, I don’t want to have a draft and don’t want to cover vents with tape all the time. I called support at Off Grid Trailers, and they sent me these vent caps which will stop the draft in winter and should provide more air flow to the AC in summer months. The second upgrade I did was a much simpler way of mounting the 23Zero Boot Bags to the bottom of the trailer.
New Pando 2.0 Vents
The Off Grid Trailers 3D printed vent covers look solid, but I will probably at some point need to find a way to mount a retaining tether to them so that I don’t mis place them (which in the current configuration is absolutely going to happen).
The original vent caps are flush mounted but have no way to turn them off, so while the look nicer I think the new ones will function better.
The real trick for me was to figure out how to remove the existing caps without scratching the vinyl. I used heavy duty paper towels to sandwich a paint scraper into the parameter of the vent. This kept it from scratching anything and also the repeating layers of paper towel under the lip pushed the caps out smoothly and evenly.
Once the vents are out, I was nervous about and the adhesive dripping on my pristine “Blue Mountain” vinyl wrap so I went a little crazy with the painter’s tape. I should mention that Sikaflex 221 is very nasty stuff (I would encourage you to have warm soapy water and paper towels at hand just in case a drip happens you will be ready to clean it up).
Put on Nitride gloves and carefully put on the Sikaflex, and push in the vent cover housings. After 6-8 hours (before the Sikaflex 221 fully cures remove the painter’s tape.
I let it cure for a week before I put the vent caps on. I didn’t want any uncured adhesive to accidently fuse the caps in place. A side note the caps only need to be finger tight – not red face tight.
23Zero Boot Bags
I stole this idea from “DirtTrail” who used “C-Channel” under the fender so that the 23Zero Boot bags could slide in and out as you need them.
I was not finding the exact size of “C-Channel Track” I wanted so I reached out to 23Zero and they replied, “We don’t have an exact name, but we call it sail track” and sent me a link. I was able to get “Flex-A-Rail” and it works perfect. Flex-A-Rail Black 44″ Long (sailrite.com) I bought 44″ and cut it into sections with some left over and then epoxied it under the fender step.
The idea being to slide them into place for shoe/boot storage while camping and then slide them out and store them when in transit.
The boot bags need to be in a place that’s accessible from the door but not touching the ground. I placed mounts on each side but still have enough material to add a third mount in an alternate location if needed. I like the idea of water resistant vented exterior storage for boots. Traditionally when camping I always made sure to have a tent with a vestibule so that you have a dry place to put your boots without sleeping with them and smelling them and placing the boot bags outside the door is the same idea.
