jimc99999

You don't have to wait until you get the receipt. I've not checked every time but I'm pretty sure I've seen the transaction listed in the app pretty much immediately. And how do you know the Maverik price wasn't the cash price, with credit price being 3% higher? That would have eaten up all but 2% of your 5%. And if the price changed that afternoon, how do you know the Maverik still had the price listed in GasBuddy. I rarely use GasBuddy and I've found the pump price to be different than some user-updated price from a few hours before. Sure, it could have maybe been a little tiny bit cheaper at the Maverik. It also would have taken 10 minutes to stop fueling at $100 or so, and then you have to swipe your card again, hope the bank doesn't flag it as a fraudulent transaction and lock your card (same card same pump 20 minutes later type of thing), take another 10 minutes to finish fueling, hope some dumbass didn't park their car somewhere awkward forcing you to disconnect your toad so you can backup, etc. All that to save maybe 2% ($5 on a $250 transaction). Don't forget the much higher chance of dirty fuel contaminating your filters costing even more time and hassle (and $$$ if you can't fix that yourself with spares you carry with you). For what is generally a pretty successful subset of the general population some people here sure are stubborn about $2. Personally, while I'm not *that* successful (my motorhome is a 97), I'd willing pay $10 extra to fuel at truck stops because it is pretty much hassle-free. Are there lines occasionally? Sure, but it's not like the small gas station with the cheapest price in town never has a line. And for my last trip, I drove 2600 miles and refueled 6 times, spending a little over $1200 in fuel (I refuel at half tank so usually 45-60 gallons). If it cost even $10 extra per stop then I paid about as much extra as one cheap roadside campground night. Or, about as much as the set of fuel filters I might have needed if I chased pennies for hours? The TSD app isn't generally going to get you lower prices than the cheapest gas stations. But it will get you pretty close, and in exchange for a couple dollars you get hi-flow pumps, easy in/out, long windshield washers, and a reasonably professional environment.

It should be in the engine bay, accessible from the rear engine cover. There should be a switch with positions labeled Front and Rear, and some kind of momentary switch to start the motor.

You don't mention which coach, my 97 Windsor had that problem with feedback through the 7-pin trailer harness plug when a trailer was connected preventing the fuel shutoff solenoid from closing. Another thing to check is the rear start/stop switch. Cycle it back to front a few times to shake any dust out of the contacts, then try starting/stopping the coach from the rear run switch. My 97 had a problem where it was getting difficult to start, eventually I had to turn on the ignition, go depress the fuel shutoff solenoid into the run position, and then start the coach. Once I finished that trip I started checking things and sure enough the start coil on the fuel shutoff solenoid wasn't getting any power. I started tracing wiring to see where that came from, turns out it went through the rear run switch. Flipping the switch a few times made everything work and it's been fine for several thousand miles since.

I ripped my ladder off on a trip. I was tired, it was raining, and the only spot in the rest area suddenly looked too tight so I turned away instead of into it. Thought I could clear the awkwardly parked truck but the tail overhang was a tiny bit more than I accounted for, got a couple scratches on the corner and my bicycle which was mounted on the ladder caught on the semi trailer. Turned out to be a blessing in disguise, a shop that did bodywork on the rear cap a few months earlier didn’t seal the ladder mounts properly and the star nuts were badly rusted. If I’d have discovered the disintegrating star nuts by the ladder failing when I was 10 feet off the ground it would have been bad. Since I’m now very paranoid about trusting my life to unseen rusting star nuts I bought a Little Giant ladder and mounted 2 ladder mounts on the rear cap to transport it.

My 97 Windsor doesn't have any fancy light controls or dimmers, just switches. So to replace the flourescents I just got some 12V LED stick-on strip from Amazon, removed the bulbs and ballasts, and added 1-4 stick-on strips, depending on how much light I wanted at that fixture. So far the basic wire nuts have been fine for 3 years full-timing, a couple years mostly in storage, and 40K miles. The LED strips have been pretty reliable, the 3000K light is nice and consistent, but I've had to replace a couple of the strips over the years because I'm very sensitive to flickering lights.

Electrical tape and connectors is #14. It’s a decent list for people that don’t already carry a reasonable set of hand tools. But the article mentions a tool bag, and all that stuff is better in a couple toolboxes. I have an entire storage bay dedicated to tools, spare filters, and some project boxes.

Off the line the tires get short, fat and wrinkled. Tall and thin is for the other end.

All good points. In my 97 Windsor, the battery boost solenoid clunked when you used the switch, and appeared to connect, but couldn't pass much current. So to start the genny when house batteries got low, I either had to start the main engine (provided charging current to house batteries) or manually boost the house batteries from the chassis batteries using jumper cables. So if the boost solenoid actually worked, the battery used to start the generator probably wouldn't matter as much. I changed the genny start battery when I replaced the isolator and boost solenoid with a BlueSea ML-ACR, and haven't needed boost functionality since. As for cable size, the 7500 in my 97 Windsor starts from a 4AWG cable, maybe even a 6AWG. I was surprised at how small it was. But even at 30F, the chassis batteries have no trouble getting the generator started.

The problem with starting the generator from the house batteries is that when you want to start the generator to recharge the house batteries, they are low. If you didn't do something dumb like leave your headlights/running lights on, your chassis batteries will be at normal charge. You also don't use deep cycle batteries for cranking the main motor because cranking batteries are optimized for flowing a lot of current for a short time, unlike the house batteries. So in normal usage, cranking the generator from the chassis batteries is better. And in the event you drain your chassis batteries and they can't start the small genny motor, you do still have options. You might be able to easily switch the generator to start on the house batteries. For me this involves moving a single cable from the chassis battery bus to the house battery bus. Even though it's easy, though, it won't be helpful for me. If I'm starting the generator it's because I need to charge the house batteries, and if I need to charge the house batteries they won't flow enough current to crank the generator. Another option is to use your towed vehicle to charge the chassis batteries enough to start the generator. Or if you completely killed your chassis batteries by leaving the headlights on, then you might need to switch the generator to crank from the house batteries, and use your towed vehicle to charge the house batteries enough to crank the generator.

We use the Splendide combo for washing quite a bit when we're living in the RV, but it's non-vented so we rarely use it for drying. We've used rv park laundry for drying, and when we can get away with it we set up our portable clothesline.

I also did maintenance/repairs in RV parks, generally without asking. What's the difference if I'm up on the roof looking at the AC units or a mobile RV repair guy? I've done fuel filters and oil in RV parks too but I try to be pretty discreet about that. But I recently discovered a much better option for fuel filters and oil changes. For the last couple years we've been off the road, but made a month or longer trip in May/June. So as a "shake off the cobwebs" trip I've headed to Maryland International Raceway in April to see my client do his top fuel drag bike shakedown passes. It's a normal club race weekend, but like most drag strips they have a large paddock. There is usually several dozen people working on their drag bikes between passes, rebuilding motors, clutches, cooling systems, etc. Several large used oil vats so you don't even have to go back to the auto parts store. If you spill a little, well, plenty has been spilled before. Since I'm not racing I park down at the end where there aren't many people, boondock for the weekend and listen to drag bikes go down the track all day. The entry fee is usually less than $100, or if you know someone who will be racing you might be able to get on their crew list for free entry.

When we stopped one cold evening, I plugged in the block heater, sure it must run only on generator/shore power, and was surprised to see 90 amp load on the inverter when I got back in the coach. I was planning to just start the genny to power the block heater sometime after 2am but it doesn’t work that way. BTW the manual states you shouldn’t run the motor with the block heater on so it’s definitely worth checking.

This is coach-dependent. My 97 Windsor had the generator starting from the house batteries, which sucked. If the batteries had been used much, I had to use the battery boost to start the generator, and when that started getting unreliable, a set of jumper cables from the chassis to house batteries. When I replaced the battery isolator, boost solenoid and chassis battery trickle charger with the ML-ACR, I also pulled the generator start circuit off the house side and connected to the chassis batteries. Much better idea, because the chassis batteries always have the juice and they're built to flow starting current.

Mine recently failed, but I was able to repair it. The drive motor uses some kind of friction bushing to drive the belt drive pulley and the throttle position sensor. That friction bushing had pretty much disintegrated. At the top of that drive shaft there's a pin that holds the TPS and drive pulley on the shaft, and that had also broken on mine, which is what ultimately caused it to stop working completely. I repaired mine by wedging a little piece of bicycle inner tube between the drive shaft and the belt drive pulley, and then using an o-ring between the TPS and drive pulley to hold the piece of inner tube in place and provide a bit more friction. A new pin from a stiff piece of wire and it worked much better than before. NOTE: if anyone knows the proper friction bushing to use here I'd appreciate being told how wrong I was to fix it this way so I can do it properly. In fact, I discovered I must have only been hitting about 80-90% throttle previously. I used to have to lift to make the 4th-5th shift, now the transmission will make that shift automatically. Boost only increased about 1 psi but EGT dropped about 50F, a good indication there is now more fuel flow at max boost. There is also a huge improvement in throttle responsiveness. It used to take about a second between pressing the throttle and getting much throttle response, for example hitting the throttle to pull out onto a road, it used to take a full second for the throttle to start ramping up and another full second or more before the motor started producing enough power to do more than ease out. Now there is much less slip when the throttle pedal is pushed, so throttle response is greatly improved. This is the drive pulley on the electric drive motor shaft. The gap between the pulley and shaft is where I wedged a bit of bicycle inner tube. I cut a piece about 4mm wide, long enough to go around the shaft. Using a jewelry screwdriver I was able to push about 2mm down between the drive pulley and shaft. I then push a small o-ring down on top of the bit of inner tube that was still sticking out. Note that the drive motor spins a lot farther than the throttle pulley will turn, so it seems required to have a friction drive instead of gluing the drive pulley to the shaft. So far my repair lasted 500 miles, and worked a lot better than the 7 miles I drove from one campground to another using a 50-foot cord to manually pull the throttle. I couldn't pull the circuit board far enough out of the way so I taped the edge so those ancient (30+ year old) components would be protected a bit. The little tabs on the drive pulley spin the TPS. The outer shell of the TPS is stationary, with the connector being held by the tab in the top of the bracket next to the drive shaft. Sorry I didn't get better pics. I usually end up taking a couple pictures to see how things were put together before I started and I must have deleted those. And by the time I finished I was annoyed it had taken me so long and I had to spend a nice afternoon doing this instead of going to ride my mountain bike.

I run my generator while driving, with the ML-ACR on auto (so both banks connected) and the alternator doesn't seem to have any problem with that. My DUVAC alternator, trickle charger, and boost solenoid were both failing, so I replaced the alternator with a modern self-exciting version and the trickle charger, boost solenoid, and battery isolator were replaced with the ML-ACR. My ALT warning light does come on occasionally, so I know it still works. The self-exciting alternator doesn't self-excite until the engine hits around 800 rpm, so sometimes it doesn't go high enough on startup to get the alternator going. When that happens, the ALT light comes on, as it should. If I had more modern electronics I'd probably hook up the starter isolation circuit but so far that hasn't been necessary either.

Interesting. I don’t do the weighted average, just mpg for each tank and on the total gallons and miles driven. But, I also enter generator hours, so I guess when I’m bored someday I could set up not only a “last 10” average but factor in generator usage. Although as a programmer, while I dabble in Excel out of curiosity occasionally, I’d be more likely to write a program to do more complicated calculations. And thinking about this…I might have to think about writing an app anyway now because my current process is to take pictures of the odometer, fuel pump, and generator hours gauge, and enter the values in a spreadsheet later. But detecting numbers in a picture is supposed to be relatively trivial now, so just taking the pictures could potentially create the entire entry for me.

I've gone from 3 tanks at 8+ mpg (not much headwind) to a tank at 5.8 mpg (150-200 miles of 20+ mph quartering headwind) to 3 more tanks at 8+ mpg, on the same tires, on the same trip. I was also going somewhat slower into the headwind than on the other tanks because the wind was pretty tiring and I was at the West Texas part of a FL -> Tucson, AZ non-stop trip. That headwind will have a lot more effect than you think.

I've taken Rt 20 from I-5 past Clear Lake to 101 a couple times in my 38' Windsor, pulling a small trailer once and dragging a toad once. It's not bad, and overall 101 isn't bad either. The part of 101 along the coast just south of Crescent City was pretty rough (bouncy) last time I headed that way (Dec 2020). On Rt 20, the Robinson Rancheria Resort & Casino has a large parking lot, easy spot to take a break. We overnighted there once as well.

I don't see why starting with batteries connected would damage the house batteries. After all, that's kind of the purpose of the battery boost solenoid they all come with. If your batteries are connected due to the inverter/charger supplying charging voltage, the charger may provide a spike in charging current due to current draw from starting, and that may not be good for the charger. My old Xantrex doesn't seem to have a problem with it, and if it's powered (by genny or shore power) it starts pushing 50A or so when I turn on the key while the intake pre-heater is heated (while the "wait to start" light is lit). The ML-ACR can be wired for automatic battery isolation on start, all you'd need is to run a wire from the appropriate lug on the starting solenoid to the correct wire on the ML-ACR harness. The ML-ACR latches and unlatches in a couple milliseconds so it should be unlatched by the time the starting solenoid latches closed to provide power to the starter, long before the starter actually starts to draw power.

That's a good point, Amazon is a cesspool of knockoffs these days, and I'd also seek out another vendor like Hodges. I did get the 7622 with the remote switch, but I haven't installed the remote switch. At first I wanted to install it just for the status LEDs to see what it was doing, but before too long I realized it didn't matter, it was doing what it said it would do. If there is charging voltage on one side, battery banks are connected so both are charged. If not, batteries are separated. Simple and perfect. One of the good things about the ML-ACR is it can handle 500A, so for example if the alternator stops working, you can run the generator and the inverter/charger will easily keep up with the power required by engine, lights, etc, while an Amp-L-Charger will not.

Just a small correction, the BlueSea ML-ACR is only $190 on Amazon, not $350. It replaces the battery isolator, battery boost solenoid, and chassis battery trickle charger (if you have one). You will have to run an extra wire if you want to use the remote switch. Since I only ever needed battery boost to start the generator when the house batteries were low, I just switched the generator start circuit to the chassis battery at the same time so I've not needed battery boost function since, I've just left the ML-ACR in automatic mode and it's been perfect. Both banks of batteries get charged whether I'm on genny or shore power, or using the alternator while driving. Once the diode-based battery isolator is removed you no longer need a duvac alternator either, a regular Delco Remy 28si alternator will work just fine.

My 97 Windsor weighed at 9200 front, 18500 rear, on Falken 255/70R22.5. The Falken inflation chart indicated 90 psi was good. I usually ran 92-95 psi. After 20K miles, the front tires were worn evenly except for a 1/8" strip around the outside edges of each front tire. When I had them replaced (aged out) I asked the tire guy about that and he suggested running higher pressure. I run the new tires (Cooper, I think?) at 100-105 psi, no real difference in ride quality. One thing I've noticed is that on a hot day (95+ ambient, 140+ road surface), the hot pressures still go up to 115-120 psi. However that was a 20-25 psi increase from 95 psi, but only a 10-15 psi increase from 105. So overall, I'd suggest running higher pressures than lower pressures. If your tires usually run 115-120psi hot, then it takes more heat to hit that pressure from 95 than 105.

The difficulty with figuring out driving comfort is that everyone has different reference points, and every coach is different. Also, a coach that's loaded up to live in full-time or a few months will make more noise on rough roads than an empty coach. My original point was that if your primary concern is driving comfort while covering miles in as few days possible, the the Class B vans are likely more comfortable to drive (less wind/road noise), cost less per mile driven, and take up much less space in your driveway.

Yes, the sleeping in strange places when traveling by car/motorcycle does suck. I do have to pay attention with the 97 Windsor, but most of the time my hands are just resting on the wheel. But the noise level is much higher than our Jeep Cherokee, and it wears on you after a while. A lot depends on traffic level and road quality, and in the eastern US most of the highways are very busy and terrible quality. I much preferred driving in northern CA and Oregon than NC or SC or anywhere north of MD. And now from southern DE, to get pretty much anywhere I have to go around DC or NYC, or down the eastern shore through the CBBT and the terrible roads around Norfolk, so no matter which way I go I'm in for several hours of bad roads and/or bad traffic. But I've also done FL -> Northern CA on I-10 to I-5 and while that's a lot nicer than any travel up and down the eastern US it still gets old pretty quick, especially when you're slogging through 50 miles of rough construction in Texas with high traffic and no margins. Rough roads that cars and motorcycles soak up with little noise and drama get miserable real quick in the Windsor. I'm sure a 45-ft MCI or Prevost chassis with IFS probably glides a lot nicer. If you have the time, tools, and space to work on a project like that you could probably pick up a Prevost tour bus, build the interior you want, and if you decide it's not really what you want for crossing the country, sell it for a nice profit. Aside from wind noise, mine does glide along pretty nice on smooth highways like most of I-95 and I-10 in FL. The tiring parts are when the traffic is bad and when the road is bad.

I'm going to have a bit of a contrarian take here. If your primary purpose is just to cross the country in a few days as comfortably as possible, even a DP motorhome is not the best way to go unless you are getting one with an independent front suspension. I've driven our 97 Windsor cross-country 3x, and one with a car dragging a trailer. Because our travel is usually set by my wife's work schedule, we've usually crossed the eastern 70% of the country in 4 days or so, averaging 500-800 miles per day. And while the Windsor may be more comfortable, more quiet, and better handling than a gas motorhome, it's still far worse than any car. I was able to more comfortably put down more miles per day on my motorcycle (Triumph Sprint sport-tourer). The RR8R chassis has a front crossmember that looks like it weighs well over 1000 lbs. So every bump you hit, that entire crossmember has to move. Is the ride/handling better than gas motorhomes built on chassis that are way too small? So I've been told, I've never driven one of those. But between the wind noise compared to a car, the relative harshness compared to a car, managing traffic with brakes far worse than a car/motorcycle, and things rattling inside the motorhome (it's a house bouncing down the road), it's much more tiring to drive than a car. And in exchange, you pay higher prices for fuel and use 3x as much. If you're driving close to highway speeds, you'll get 8mpg. These are tradeoffs most of us are willing to make, because we spend enough time living in the motorhome to make it worth it. My wife and I lived in ours for 3 years, and most trips we take now are for a couple weeks to a couple months, so even now we spend a lot more time living in the motorhome than driving it. If you really want to drive across the country as quickly and comfortably as possible instead of fly, I'd recommend a diesel class B van. They get 16-20 mpg, they're smaller, lighter, easier to drive and park anywhere. If you decide to spend a few hours sightseeing somewhere it's much easier to park in pullouts and parking lots than even a 36-ft motorhome. It won't take up nearly as much space in your driveway (you mentioned that as a concern, if you need to park in storage you'll be looking at an extra $100+ per month).