Replacing Fresh Water Hose on Hose Reel

[Flanz]

I’m in the process of repairing our hose reel that has broke. There’s a retrofit kit that I’m using for the repair. Since the hose is almost six years old and the reel is a pain in the butt to remove I’ve decided to replace the hose…..

Has anyone replaced their hose on there coach? The fitting looks to be a 90 degree 1/2” Street elbow with a 1/2” barb on it. Looks like it was crimped with a machine.

Anyone out there done this and could shed some light on what they did?

[seeg]

If your hose reel is behind the steel panel where the the water filters and switches are mounted you’ll have to be a contortionist to change out the water hose. We “blew” the hydraulic crimp you referenced and my wife and I spent several hours trying to use hose clamps to reattach it per Southwires suggestion. The hose exits between the aluminum disc’s and was almost impossible to reach. If you can get at it shouldn’t be much of a problem. We couldn’t. Both Southwire and Entegra agreed to replace the entire reel assembly and hose as we were under warranty. NIRVC actually flew out a tech who removed and replaced the reel. He removed the small filter in the lower right corner of the water bay, took out all the screws securing the panel and pulled the top of the panel out while pushing the bottom in. He then had enough room to reach inside and unscrew the hose reel mounting bolts. He then was able to wiggle the entire reel assembly out and replace it with a new one. I thought he would remove the entire panel but he didn’t want to disconnect all the switches and pex tubing.

I have the schematics somewhere if you think they’d be helpful. I also kept the old reel and most of the fittings but we had to re-use one or two fittings supplied by Entegra.

I’ve attached photos of my wet bay. Yours may not be the same. The hose reel resides behind the panel on the right side of the wet bay.

[777 Driver]

Hi Paul,

If you're replacing the clutch mechanism for the hose reel with the CRRK-01 kit, I don't believe there's any way to do that without removing the hose reel.

It wasn't too difficult for me to remove the reel. It gives a little more access if you remove the screws holding the wet bay white metal panel so that you can pull it out a little. Just that little bit of additional access to the reel will greatly reduce the difficulty. There are four attachment points for the hose reel to the floor of the bay. Three of those attachment points are accessible without too much difficulty. The fourth, which is the farthest inboard and aft attachment, seemed to me to be virtually inaccessible. Fortunately, there was no machine screw installed there.

It was a little bit of a wrestling match to maneuver the hose reel out.

Once you've got it out to install the clutch kit, access to the hose attachment to the reel is easy. However, as you've noted, the hose is crimped to the attachment. I couldn't see any easy way to completely remove the hose to replace it with a new hose without damage to the crimp. I cut the old hose about 2" from the crimp fitting and used a 1/2" hose barb to splice the replacement hose, leaving the crimp fitting undisturbed.

I did use two PEX crimp clamp fittings to attach the hose ends firmly to the hose barb. The PEX clamps seemed to be a better choice than conventional screw type hose clamps to prevent chafing and reduce the size of the "lump" that the conventional hose clamps would cause.

Good luck.

Take care,
Stu

P.S. I did this last March. It's my recollection that the hose barb was 1/2"; it may have been 5/8". Use whatever fits.

[Flanz]

Hi Stu,

Thanks for the reply…..

The hose reel is out and ready to be repaired. This is the second time I’ve taken it out due to repairing the reel. Hopefully this is the last time. And yes, I’m installing the CRRK-01 kit.

The crimp can be cut off the barb, that’s not the issue, it’s re-crimping the new hose back on the barb. I’ve got three ways to do this, your way, or cutting crimp and having a hydraulic shop put a new crimp back on, or using PEX cinch crimps to crimp the new hose back on the original barb.

I’m just pinging folks to find out what they’ve done. I figure that since the reel is out and the hose is six years old it’s time to change it. Don’t want to remove this reel again….

Thanks again for your suggestion.

[777 Driver]

Hi Paul,

I think I favored cutting the original hose a couple of inches from the machine crimped reel barb and using PEX cinch crimps and new barb to splice the new hose to the old hose, leaving the original crimped connection undisturbed.

I worried that fiddling with the machine crimped barb might booger that up in a way that I wouldn't be able to fix. Simply cutting the hose about 2" from the hose reel connection and splicing a new hose there seemed like something that I could do with what I had at hand.

Good luck.

Take care,
Stu

[Flanz]

I understand. The only concern I have with a splice is that now there are multiple points of failure. Not ruling out your method, just taking my time to think this out because I don’t want to take this apart again….

Still waiting on some parts to come in. Specifically, the new hose.

[Jalisa]

We’ll a few months ago we cut our hose off because it was green inside and we had an issue with the screw on part (it broke off). After we cut it we determined the green did not go very far in (from the end) but it was already cut. Anyway, after a few tries with barbs, hose clamps, and continued leaking from the new attachment point we now just use quick connects and roll the new hose up into a container. All that’s left on the reel is about a foot of original hose with a quick connect. No leaking, hose can be replaced instantly.
Lisa

[Flanz]

Hey Stu,

Thanks for your help with the hose and reel. We’re back up and running!! No more dragging hoses out of the basement to get connected to water…..

Thanks again……

Paul