Keeping dust out of Jayco camper

I suggest using gaffa tape while in transit. It looks a bit ugly but it's better than spending an hour wiping everything down when you arrive. Sorry I can't offer any help with the fans. It worked well with our Swan. Also helps to keep draughts from entering throught the door vents when the temperature plummets at night in winter.
Cheers,
Amanda.

Not sure with the Hawk but our Eagle used to get Dust in, I removed most of the covers EG: rear seat so I couls see the back joint and its 1mm gap, this was filled with silastic, also front locker has leaks everywhere, again silastic was used. As for the fridge, ours has the front bed directly above it when closed so fans would struggle to fit. I fitted a air flap that faces forward and pressurizes the unit. Most dust we now get is a little on the bench top. SWMBO wipes it with a damp cloth when we setup and its done.

Empty front locker and put house in and see amount of leaks...

Hope this helps

Hi Derek,

On my Dove I got some clear plastic sheeting like the stuff your windows in the camper are made of and then used adhesive sided velco and made covers for the vent on the door and the vent above the fridge. These can be added and removed in seconds and don't leave sticky marks from tape. (Just make sure you remove the one above the fridge when you setup. I don't even remove the one on the door)

Also make sure you leave the plug in the sink.

I also did what was mention above and went thru the the whole van and sealed any gaps with sealant.

Depending on how old your van is you may also want to replace the sealing tape around the door. Mine was very flat and didn't seal. The fibreglass roof seals may also need attention where it seals against the body when closed.

You'll never make it 100% dust proof but by doing the above you should have minimal dust entry (not visible to the eye......only a clean finger wiped along a bench)

Good luck.

A few things that we tried and learnt towing our Dove Outback.

We I wanted to run the fridge on 12v while towing, I didn’t cover over the fridge vents. What I did do to try to minimise dust getting throughout the camper via the fridge vents was to seal the hole cut in the side wall that the fridge 240v power cord goes through. In the Dove, doing this prevents lots of dust getting in with the knife and forks.

We did as other have suggested with covering the door vets with plastic and tape. Dust still got in, from the smallest of gaps. One was through the roof windup door on the front and the other was around the water tank fill area. I can’t see any holes around either of these but the dust was visible on the inside of both these areas.

In an attempt to help the fridge vent better, I had attached a computer fan that was suspended behind the upper rear section of the fridge, to push the hot air out. It did help until the dust and vibration stuffed the fan bearings after 3,000kms of tracks.

We travelled Nov 07 to Jan 08, after a day towing the fridge temp would be about 20C by the end of the day. When we stayed put running on either 240V or gas, the best the fridge would get down to was about 8C. There isn’t anything wrong with our fridge, it’s just it can’t handle the extreme long hot periods. We change our meals from fresh meat to canned meat.

cheers Anthony

Have a Jayco Swan, fabricated a cover and use velcro to affix it on iside of door. No dust, easy to remove when setting up.

We have a "dust scupper" (I thjink that's what they are called) in the roof that is supposed to pressurise the van and stop dust being sucked in when you flip it open. aven't had a need to use it yet, but we were wondering how do you pressurise a van when there are air vents all over the place? ie - door has two vents - one on the top and one on the bottom, there is the vent for the fan above the stove. The aircon has a vent and I think the hot water service has one as well.

Does the air forced in from the scupper have enough force to stop dust coming in from all of these vents? (and anywhere else that is not sealed)

Would be interested to know what peoples experience have been.

Derek L,

When the fridge is on 12v it doesn't create a lot of heat the 12v really just holds the fridge at a reasonable temp and certainly cannot be relied on to give the same performance as gas. So I made up 2 pieces of 3mm ply and cut them to the shape of the vent. However with the top one I cut it so it didn't go over the heat vent. I adhered rubber sealing strips to the board then screwed them through the plastic edge that is secured to the camper with self tappers whenever I go on dirt roads. I also stuffed insulation in the gaps around the fridge and sealed those cutouts where the 240v leads go through by simply cutting pieces of plastic from and ice cream container, drilled a hole for the lead then made a cut to the hole so I could get the lead into the hole, then stuck it with silicon, did the same thing on the bed side, I had a Penguin so this is probably diferent to yours.

For the door vent I made up another piece of ply and just made up some brackets for it to slide in, I did glue some rubber sealing strips on it to to get a good seal. For the door I cut 2 pieces of flat metal 25mm wide x 3mm thick x 100mm long and made 2 flat latches (I bent each end to make a handle of sorts). Drilled a hole on the middle and screwed them into the door frame one on the bottom and the other on the side down from the normal latch. When the door is shut I closed the latches over the doors edge and you will get a great seal if you do it right you will not get any dust in around that door...most of it gets in through that vent and the lower part of the door because it does not seal very well as the standard latch just doesn't give that. One thing I did do was to silicon pieces of plastic to the door and the latches to get a bit more pressure and to make sure the paint on the camper didn't get scratched. Anyway might have been a bit rough but it worked!!

The other thing I did was had my wife get a torch, at night of course, and shine it around the edges from the inside and outside when I saw any light I simply siliconed the gap. Also carried a tube with me and whenever I saw any hint of red dust it copped the treatment. I succeeded in eliminating 99.9% of dust ingression...the only bit that use to get in was through that heat vent but it had to be very bulldusty for it to happen and it would appear around that vent inside the camper on top of the fridge but that's where it stayed!!

Gday
I have an outback eagle. I bought some genuine air conditioning filter material (that they use on the 'return air' grills) and took the jayco fridge vents off, cut to size plus 10mm and then put the grills back on. The grills hold the material in place. This material breathes very well and yet keeps 99.??% of dust out. At camp it is easy enough to take the grill off and shake any dust off from the day's driving.
cheers
John

try any of these forums

van forum 1

van forum 2

van forum 3

cheers mick