Frank McElroy

Good - a 30 amp DC to DC should have been just fine - no alternate abuse there.

Don't know if this was your situation but one thing to keep in mind is that the engine alternator system was basically designed to maintain house and chassis battery power. If you used the alternator to in effect bulk charge house batteries you will significantly shorten the life of the engine alternator. Bulk charging house batteries is to be done with the generator and the inverter/charger.

See page 92 for the low voltage high current wiring diagram. If you need to have the engine running to extend the slide outs that's NOT how the coach was wired when it left the factory. Someone has modified the low voltage high current circuit. Please post a picture of the interior of your RRB (Rear Run Bay) electrical box.

I doubt you'll find a reasonably priced 24 to 12 volt converter will have enough amps to run the slide hydraulic pump. But, I'm surprised that the generator start and slide hydraulic pump are not operated from the chassis batteries. If, not, reconfigure the RRB like an 08 Dynasty. Also, on your coach, the slides can be closed with the ignition ON and the engine running. When opening the slides the engine ignition must be OFF.

I posted a reply to the question. You might want to consider replacing the big boy with a Blue Sea ML-ACR and add the dash switch option for manual control of battery boost and chassis battery charging when on shore power.

If you disconnect pin #2, house battery input, the big boy will NOT engage when on generator or shore power to charge the chassis batteries. When the ignition is turned ON, and the engine is running, big boy will engage thinking that the house batteries are completely dead. If pin #3, ignition input is disconnected, big boy will engage on shore or generator power thinking that the chassis batteries are dead. But the big boy will not engage when the engine is running. However, if the generator is running, big boy will engage and alternator voltage will feed the house batteries. Battery boost would still work if pin #2 OR pin #3 were disconnected. If BOTH were disconnected battery boost would NOT work. If pin #8 battery disconnect switch input is disconnected, big boy would be disabled and never engage under any scenario.

Another option to consider is to have the leveling jacks powered by the chassis 12 volt system instead of the house 24 to 12 volt converter..

Mike, I enjoyed watching your videos on the construction and shop tour years ago - they are great and very informative. I had much the same philosophy as you did when I built my pole barn back in 2007 - some pictures are posted on page 2 of this thread. It has a conventional shingle roof, concrete poles below grade, sandwiched 3-2x6 DF poles above with steel plates to the concrete poles, insulated interior, 100 amp electrical service, and fully sheetrocked. I outsourced the building construction and concrete - the insulation (spray foam & fiberglass), electrical and sheetrock I did myself. Hanging 4x12' sheets of sheetrock for the most part alone on a 15' high ceiling was the hardest part. Wall sheetrock and taping was easy by comparison. Building code restrictions did play an important part in the design and size. I thought that a garage restriction was 1,000 SQFT max and at least 35 feet off the property line, but when I spoke with the building department, they said that as long as it wasn't attached to the house, it didn't have running water, didn't use it to store more than 3 vehicles or use it as a business warehouse, it would be classified as a residential storage building with a max size of 1500 SQFT, exterior height below 21" and at least 15 feet off the property line. So, that's what I did - and no required variance approvals from my neighbors. (The building inspector did tell me that during construction, I had one very upset neighbor who complained that it was way too big and it blocked her view of the deer in my back yard - they told her sorry - he has all the proper permits to build it.) My biggest objective was to have an inside storage home for our new coach to keep it clean - no rodents, and never need to winterizes again. After 18 years of winterizing gassers - I had enough. I found that I didn't need to heat it in the winter as temps never got below 34 DF inside even with some very cold sub zero NJ winter cold snaps - the 8" thick concrete floor and spray foam/fiberglass insulation worked well. One of my future projects is to pipe underground hot water from the house boiler to the barn but I still have that pretty low on my to-do list. When I upgraded the home heating system before building the barn, I designed and installed a modulated 35,000 - 150,000 gas boiler in the house with up to 6 air handlers and radiant heat zones - one zone is already setup for the barn. Street aesthetics were also important. With the 125 foot street setback to the corner of the 1 acre lot and only the 14x14 foot door facing the street, two front and rear man doors are on the right side, 2 windows on each side, a few neighbors commented that it seemed much smaller looking from the street vs actually being up close inside. A few folks on the forum have stayed for overnight visits. There is enough room to park in front of the door and hook up to a 50 amp exterior pedestal without blocking any of the 3 house garage doors. Made a lot of right decisions on this project and very happy with it. I'd do it all again exactly the same way.

Ivan - I do the same as you. Yes, a bit harder to install the tire sensors, but it's a whole lot better than using the braided extensions that are prone to leaking over time.

Tom - As a follow-up to our discussions, thank you for posting my offline comments. Bottom line - if you are starting the engine or driving in very cold climates (teens DF or below) use ATF or Transynd and NOT AW46. Your hydraulic oil cooler will thank you.

I don't believe vacation mode disables ice making. It just stops the defrost cycle.

I believe there is a certain time window that after you press vacation mode it will stay on even if the door is reopened. After that window, the next time the door is opened it will go back to normal operation. I don't recall now what that time window is. I just got in the habit of being sure it's still on if I need to open the door at night.

I often dry camp at truck stops overnight and found this to be a great feature on the Jen-air side by side residential refrigerators. Just be sure to turn it back on if you open either door to get your midnight ice cream or adult cold beverage.

On my Jen-air, when dry camping, I select the vacation mode and then close the door. This will block the defrost heaters from turning on. The only catch is that the next time the door is opened, the vacation mode ends and will allow a defrost cycle unless you again press the vacation mode before closing the door.

Glad I could shed more information on the topic. With oil, it's all about high viscosity at low sub freezing temperatures being the problem, and even though heat exchangers are on the low pressure side, with the high oil viscosity they can damage heat exchangers as Monaco found out. Tom Cherry, thanks for editing your original post to correct the issue from being an oil expansion issue to a high viscosity issue causing heat exchanger failures. Bottom line, if you are traveling in very cold weather conditions, use ATF and not AW46 as your hydraulic fluid.

The problem has nothing to do with AW46 expanding as it gets colder - it doesn't. The issue has to do with viscosity. Monaco experience showed a high frequency of hydraulic oil cooler failures when temp get very low - teens, single digits or below zero DF. The high pressure from very viscous AW46 hydraulic fluid, when operating under very cold conditions, was the reason for the hydraulic heat exchanger failures. That's why Monaco changed over to using transmission fluid instead of the cheaper AW46 hydraulic fluid.

That 15w40 sticker was for the engine oil. Your model year coach likely had AW46 hydraulic fluid in the hydraulic oil tank and that sticker is missing. That straw color looks like AW46 too. If you aren't traveling in below freezing weather you can stay with AW46 or change to ATF. The two fluids are compatible with each other.

Your best reference document would be a set of schematics for your coach. (This was mentioned in replies to posts on another forum.) Circuits that use fuses and circuit breakers are all in separate wiring diagram schematics as individual circuits. You will not find a single document anywhere (other than in a set of wiring schematics) listing the hundreds of individual fuses and exactly what each one does in your conventional chassis 12 volt and house Intellitec 12 volt multiplex lighting systems. However, with that said, almost every fuse on the circuit boards in the FRB (front run bay) below the drivers seat, the RRB (rear run bay) and the Intellitec system in the bedroom closet has an LED light that will light up if the circuit is active and the fuse is good. The LED colors red, yellow, green have no meaning as far as colors go. They were for the wow factor and only mean that the circuit is on and that the fuse is good. What is important to know is where to look for a fuse based on the problem you have. For example, house lighting, water pump control, thermostat control, slide controls, you look in the bedroom closet house Intellitec system. Most anything else, chassis related, it's either the FRB or RRB 12 volt electrical bays. And then you have "hidden" fuses for things like solar in the battery boxes and other system fuses in the ceiling between the frame rails behind the cover in the storage bay where you'll find the transmission and Bendix ABS/ATC computers and your Aladdin databus interface. All these fuses will be in your set of schematics. Here is a link to a set of schematics. Print out page 131 and pages 195-202 for Intellitec modules A-H, page 218 for the RRB and page 233 for the FRB. (Yes, I know you have a 2007 Dynasty but the 2006 set of schematics will be close enough.) This will provide you with the fuse labels you need. Also, become familiar with these wiring diagrams and how the electrical circuits work. A wealth of information - more than you could ever imagine but you will need to know if you have a problem.

First follow the big boy cleaning procedure. Since you hear it engaging, likely all it needs is a good cleaning of the interior contacts.

If you are not able to maintain house battery power while driving, the root cause is your big boy not working to connect the chassis to house batteries so that the house batteries are charged by the engine alternator while driving. Either big boy needs to be cleaned or the small control board in the RRB needs to be repaired.. This is actually a very serious issue on a Kongsberg chassis multiplex coach. While driving the house batteries MUST be charged either by the engine alternator or the generator via the Magnum inverter/charger. If driving at night with the lights on, eventually you will lose all house battery power and all dash and lights will go dead yet the engine will still run. In your case until big boy is either fixed or bypassed you should always run the generator while driving. Any time while driving, if house and chassis batteries aren't showing charging voltage, run the generator. As for using a battery pack to jump start, just connect the positive lead on the battery pack to the house battery lug on the side post in the FRB (Front Run Bay) and the other side to ground. The generator battery cable connects to that lug in the FRB. No need to turn OFF the battery disconnect switches (which on most Kongsberg coaches won't power down the FRB anyway).

I removed the duplicate post. Members do have a small window to edit posts (up to 5 hours) after posting to correct edits or to delete the post. Beyond that timeframe a moderator must do it for you.

Since this topic was first posted, there have been a number of developments including an option to repair failed dash switch modules on a Kongsberg Chassis multiplex system and a 5 volt aux power supply to fix most SmartWheel problems. Here is a link to an extensive 12 page thread.

The short answer is no - the power gear valid leveling system has no impact on wiper functions.

If you are talking MPH, that data is pulled off the engine ECM databus. There is no separate Aladdin MPH speed sensor. If your issue is that the MPH on the Aladdin don't match your GPS then the issue is with the setting in the engine ECM for tire size and drive axle gear ratio.

Thank you for the kind words. I'm sure your followup solution and how the troubleshooting was done will help others.