Replaced A/C shroud

[Rich and Cork]

A couple of weeks ago I had one of my A/C shrouds get blown apart in a high wind night in the desert. I decided to replace both, since the other one was also cracked and due to leave the coach.....

I ended up ordering two from these folks and installed yesterday:

Penguin Dometic Duo Therm RV Air Conditioner Shroud

I bought from them to save a few bucks, but I don't know if I am happy and probably would recommend getting original equipment from Camping World or the like. The holes in the new covers did not line up quite right and I had to redrill some of the holes. The cover material seems to be thinner and felt wimpier. I did not measure to compare thickness. The old covers had a foam insert bonded to rest on a portion of the A/C inside framing and the new ones did not.

[Beagle RC Air]

The mounting screws were loose and the holes elongated on both of our AC covers.
I used some 1/16" X 1" X 3" aluminum and epoxied to the underside of the covers and redrilled the holes. stainless hex head sheet metal screws and washers to replace the old screws.
beagle

[bcbowers]

This thread hits my #1 "pet peeve" since purchasing my coach (used). We didn't even realize that the front A/C cover was missing which kept it from blowing cold air. I paid a local dealer to replace (& paint) a new cover which ended up flying off on my very first trip. I got the dealer to replace it under warrantee to only have it come loose on my next trip to North Carolina.

My son & I discovered the same issues with the mounting method but more importantly noticed that the cover is actually larger than the unit's mounting. We added 1/2" weather stripping competely around the mounting surface to take up the space & help seal it. We relaced the screws with #10 sheet metal type screws, flat washers, & locker washers.

We also drilled new holes along the side and added additional mounting screws & washers. You may not like the idea that these new screws are easily visible from the ground but I prefer "reliability over appearance". It's not that big of a deal to me.

Since having so many problems with these covers, I now use a 2' bungy cord across the middle of both covers. Again, I prefer reliability over appearance and find it EXTREMELY annoying when a cover comes loose while traveling. Eventually, I hope to trust the mountings enough to eliminate the bungy cords.

I emailed Dometic Technical Support about the fact that these covers do not seem to fit more correctly on the Penquin A/C units. They replied with how great their products are and apologized for the problems I'm having. NO REAL SOLUTION OFFERRED! They're obviously in denial!?

[EngineerMike]

Rich&Cork- you can DIY the foam on the underside of the plastic cover. I used peel n stick foam from HD & replaced the falling-off cheepo stuff from Dometic and increased the efficiency of the AC remarkably. Wife asked (w/out knowing I had done anything), "What did you do to the AC? Its working GREAT!"
I told her I had fixed the air flow on the rear one only. She made me do the front one the next week. I shoulda kept my mouth shut.