How to replace the end of the shore power electrical cord

About a year ago the plastic sheathing which protects the wires inside our 50 amp shore power cable came “unattached” to the plug’s end. Knowing that this wasn’t good I did some online research and found that most people were using gorilla tape to re-attach it.

One afternoon I decided I would use some acetone to clean the wires and sheathing up real good so the tape would stick better. I applied the gorilla tape being careful to keep it flat so water couldn’t get inside the cable behind the sheathing. Using black tape the job looked almost as good as new, but would it last?

After four or five months the taped plug-in re-separated. I once again took to the internet in search of solutions. The obvious one, of course, was to simply replace the end but how difficult would that be?

Finding no other viable solutions I ordered a new one. After reading about several replacements I chose the Camco PowerGrip Replacement Plug on Amazon because of its great reviews and I liked the large handle on the back of the plug to assist in taking it apart (especially from a 30 AMP adapter).

Once the replacement arrived through the mail it was time to put it on. I read the instructions carefully and they were very meticulous. The first task was cutting off the old end. I opted to use a hack saw with a metal cutting blade since I didn’t have a large enough wire cutter. Once the end was cut off the directions said to strip each of the old wires in a particular way:

Wire Color        How much wire  unsheathed         How much wire to strip to copper    

green                              3"                                             .75” or 3/4”
black                     1.875 or 1 7/8”                                 .625” or 5/8”
red                        1.875 or 1 7/8”                                 .625” or 5/8”
white                         1.5 or 1 1/2                                   .625” or 5/8”

Why they gave directions in decimals for the inches I have no idea because I had to convert them first. I used a box cutter to cut the sheathing down the three inches needed for the green wire and then used a wire cutter to achieve the lengths needed for each wire. Finally I used a wire stripper to strip the required amounts off of each wire’s end.

At this point one must be really careful to make sure to follow the diagram to put each wire in its rightful place. Then tighten each as much as possible. All that remained was to put the rest of the plug together and tighten the sheath collar real snug.

With the right tools this happened to be a fairly easy task in making our power cord as good as new! It was made even easier when the neighbor’s dog came by to assist…

NOTE:  We are currently in College Station, Texas until June 15th…