Gary Cole

Interesting post. I'm thinking that whether or not your steering wheel is centered when driving down the road is a good indicator of the general health of your suspension and alignment state. Mine is still perfectly centered at 41000 miles so maybe I'll worry about something else taking a dump for a while. 🙂

I don't know enough about this topic to even have an opinion. I somehow imagined that shock travel would be the limiting factor based on my equally limited experience with coil spring suspension systems. I have raised my rear wheels off the ground on numerous occasions apparently without consequence which included chaining up and parking on steep residential streets on occasion.

Winston Churchill observed that the single best argument against democracy was a 5 minute conservation with a voter.

Mike I always use an impact, letting it hammer for a bit , when working with seized threads. They are inexpensive and can prevent a small job from turning into a disaster. Broken stainless steel bolt in aluminum bike block- couldn't save block- expensive lesson for a newbie.

Both Oregon and Washington have a public agenda with the goal of forcing people into public transportation, riding bicycles, and walking. Oregon recently spent $200,000,00 replacing a heavily used 4 lane bridge which crossed the Willamette with a bike-pedestrian only bridge which is little more than a postcard novelty. Now that previous traffic is funneled into an existing bottleneck which the state has no intention of ever replacing. All by design.

Should have responded on another thread as suggested.

Dick I'm thinking along the lines of a dual purpose bike, street legal with off road capability. Not something I would use to carry an 800lb bagger on. Just don't like the nuisance of towing an auto or trailer. With reference to other tales, I have never observed an RV being weighed with hopes of it being 1000 lbs overweight. I suspect they are more interested in rock haulers and other sort running 40,000 lbs overweight while dodging the scales.

Mike I use a PVC cutter. I also put a slight bevel on the tubing and use a lubricant such as dish soap such that it does not cut the O ring when I insert the tube. There are water based lubricants which are specifically designed for the process. I also make certain that I have a couple of inches of straight tubing coincident with the fitting plane and secure the tubing with ultraviolet resistant tie wraps. The process only takes a few minutes if one makes sure that he has everything he needs before he crawls under the coach. I've observed instrumentation technicians doing their work and they consider a leak of any kind a complete disgrace. RV manufacturers must have a somewhat different philosophy.

Robert you are the man. I'm going to quit feeling sorry for myself , suck it up, and get to work.

Air bleed down is always going a never ending problem in a system which uses insert tube fittings. Prior to insert fittings heavy duty vehicle air systems used steel braided hose and fittings which were rated for use in low pressure hydraulic systems. Typically leakproof for the life of the vehicle. I installed a 12V air compressor so that I can maintain a user selectable air pressure in the suspension system and insure that the vehicle remains level when parked without the use of jacks and when necessary to assist the hydraulic leveling system when parked on soft surfaces. The 3rd time I spent several hours in the mud jacking and digging my hydraulic jack pads out of soft camp ground soil was the deciding factor for me. One thought after I posted this comment. A trouble shooting technique which divides a problem in successive halves often succeeds. Perhaps a mystery air leak could be found if one divided his system in half or quadrants with two or four $8.00 valves.

Frank is 100% of engine horsepower available during a regen and how much time does a regen require. Does exhaust backpressure increase significantly during the cycle?

I like improvising myself and the challenge that oftentimes comes with it. It's a benefit which comes with the RV hobby. These are complicated machines and at times one wonders why they don't come with a maintenance man included when purchased. As to replacing a compressor those who don't have a vacuum pump can purge a small system with freon and argon from a mig welding tank can be used as an inert gas during the soldering process. Just guessing but I would imagine a new compressor could be had for $150.00 on ebay. The satisfaction derived from doing it yourself is priceless.

Jim the schedule you provided points to the chassis battery. I would replace everything in your photo. Current carrying metal components are plated, oftentimes with cadmium, so as to inhibit corrosion from chemical and electrolytic processes. Abrasive cleaning can be expected to remove whatever is left of the coating. Terminal blocks are inexpensive and are available with LED's which indicate a blown fuse. The DC ground (negative battery terminal), the chassis, the AC grounded conductor (neutral), and the AC equipment grounding conductor are all bonded together at a single point per the NEC. In order to identify a DC ground or either of the 2 grounded AC circuits check for voltage from the conductor and the chassis or something bolted to it.

Interesting information Jim. How were you measuring the back pressure in the exhaust system?

From an Oregon perspective, currently burning, consider that the experts, the PhDs, the bureaucrats, the public land managers, the smartest people in the room, now admit that they were completely wrong. Buy your local logger a beer. He said that this was coming. Oregon now finds itself in the position of having to pay loggers to remove dead decayed wood, fire starter if you will, that loggers offered to pay top dollar to harvest only a few years ago.

I have a tractor with the regen system. It gives me a warning that a regen is due and allows me to initiate the process manually. Do over the highway diesels give a similar warning and if so would it be prudent to initiate the cycle manually before traveling in mountainous areas?

If one placed both 120 V legs on one side of the circuit breaker the 2P circuit breaker would still trip at its rated amperage , 50 A for example, when overloaded therefore preventing the neutral from being overloaded. All the breaker sees is the heat generated by its bi metal strip (small frame breakers). Or if it has instantaneous trip capability a fault going to ground. It doesn't know how many wires there are or what size. However the picture shows what is clearly a series fault. A fault which is not going to ground. An inverse time/instantaneous trip, or fuse for that matter, has no capability of detecting a series fault except in a few very limited circumstances. Unfortunately series faults are responsible for the huge preponderance of electrical related fires. There is a new generation of circuit breaker available when as I understand can detect both types of faults. Some even combine GFCI detection. I mentioned that type earlier in the post. Not to familiar with how they work at the moment.

That is a good observation Gary. The vertical axis of the top gear is in line with the lower gear indicating that it should be shimmed and not the lower gear. You 've probably seen a few things in your line of work. 🙂

Those gears do have far to much lash. Would have been a better design if they had of used dissimilar materials in the pair since they run dry. Been thinking about using a lubricant which would not attract dust and grime. Maybe something used on woodworking tools.

There is a label on the instrument housing indicating the terminal callout. Check for 12 V between grnd, white, and hot with ign on. 12 V+ Wire color is red and as I recall and term 4.

Norman, One day you are going to find yourself in the ranks of the respected RV masters when you overcome this latest challenge life has blessed you with. Then you will find yourself attending to the tired, the poor, the hungry, those of whose wives have hidden all sharp objects from.

Wow, scary picture. I've noticed that whenever I stop by the local auctions there is always an ample number of burned out RV hulks ranging from travel trailers to luxury liners. I have read that about 50% of RV fires are electrical related. I worked in the silicon forest for many years. In the industry, most generally, engineering specs prohibit the use of wire nuts on conductors larger than #12 and then only on lighting circuits where the current draw is low. Bolted connectors are available for every wire size, are vibration resistant, and much safe in every respect. After seeing your picture I am going to redo every connection in my RV and eliminate all wire nuts. I also plan on upgrading to arc fault circuit breakers. The technology contained in the circuit breakers represents a truly dramatic increased capability in detecting arc faults and preventing heat generated electrical fires.

The pdf at the Lowes site which Tom linked to explains the ins and outs quite well. The integral driver mentioned is an integrated chip which requires an ac circuit power input in order to perform its magic. Type A will only work with the higher voltage a ballast supplies while type B will work with ballast voltage or 120 V. The pdf said the tubes are compatible only with rapid start ballast, solid state or transformer style. There is a ballast type which uses a pre heater circuit. Would not work behind that type of ballast.

As a temporary measure when on shore power one can use jumpers with alligator clips in parallel between the house batteries and chassis batteries so long as the resting voltage between the sets is similar. Don't do this if one set is discharged because the charged set will charge the other with a very heavy current flow. Batteries with different standing voltages connected in parallel also present challenges for the charging system.

Should add one thing regarding the fuel level sensor if it is a Centroid. The unit uses a solid state board to translate capacitance to resistance. Your mechanic should be careful to not short the output leads to ground. Would imagine that the senders are spendy.