ok-rver

2004 original Xantrex inverter/charger. I know there are better ways of monitoring the battery state of charge but this is kind of working. I have replaced the house to chassis relay with a Blue Sea ACR. It works great. there is a current coil around the house big battery cable with monitoring by the Xantrex that determines current going in and out of the house battery. When on the road, the engine alternator is charging house battery thru the ACR and a short cable and this cable nor the current goes thru the coil. After many hours on the road, both batteries are at 13.8 volts and I would assume pretty fully charged. I fired up the generator the other evening and the Xantrex showed the batteries at maybe 90% but only charging at a few amps. I was originally thinking about buying a longer battery cable to go from the ACR thru the coil and then to the battery. Just walked out to make sure the coil was where I thought it was. Coil is probably too small to get two cables thru. would have to run another foot or so to get to the house battery switch and then all current would go to the battery thru one cable. My sailboat had a shunt that the inverter monitored and all current going into the battery was accounted for. Looking for what others are doing. Thanks for the input,

looking at hose further. The radiator and CAC have not moved, mounts are solid. I have not looked closely at the turbo but it does have a band clamp between the exhaust housing and the turbo housing. the down tube on the air compressor side does appear to be further away from the CAC than it needs to be. From someone that has removed and re-installed a turbo on the 2003 era 8.3 ISC, could the turbo housing have been rotated away from the CAC tube or is there other framework that locates the rotation of the turbo?

We are leaving end of May for a 5,000 mile trip from Tulsa up thru the NW USA. With the price of diesel what it is, I elected to install a AG Diesel chip. The wife and I did a 50 mile loop to confirm that it is functioning correctly. Will comment on gas mileage increase after 1,500 or so miles. Just b4 back to the storage bay, I told the wife that I thought the handling was at a point were she would not be as stressed when she drove due to the wandering. Her statement was that she could tell a great reduction in the amount of movement when we were passed by 18 wheelers. I was aware of the reduction but never thought about the seat of the pants feel from the right seat. While I elected to install a special fabricated bracket, the parts from Mike Hughes at MonacoWatts are absolutely first class. IMO, the X-braces in the rear are an absolute necessity for any RR8R/S chassis. The Watts in the front got it to a point where I can take my hands off the wheel for a short period of time. Two finger driving to keep it in its lane even when being passed by a truck. About $1,700 invested which will take us from tired after 4 hours, X-braces got us to 6 hours, front Watts to maybe over 8 hour days when needing to cover ground. Time will tell. May you have fair winds,

Tested my 12v connection from MH to CRV. Old blue spiral 6 pin to 7 pin cable rubber deteriated so purchased new Hopkins yellow cable with LEDs. Just long enough. When I installed my FASS pump, I installed a Blue Sea fuse block off chassis battery and ground bus bar in rear battery compartment. Ran wire from fuse block to 7 pin trailer connector thru 20 amp fuse and 14 ga wire. Thru spiral cable to 6 pin of front of CRV. From 6 pin connector thru 15 amp breaker to + post on battery. Ground thru 6 pin also to neg on battery and from 7 pin to frame of the MH. With spiral cable connected, MH engine running at 13.8 volts, I had 1.5 amps feeding into CRV battery. Will continue to monitor but pleased with the overall way the system is working.

I am working thru HYDRAPOWER INTEGRAL POWER STEERING GEAR HFB 64 service manual. TRW Ross Division for truck with around 12k front load. I see the torsion bar and how it controls the valve sending fluid to either side of the rack. Not finding how much movement is full rotation of the torsion bar. still looking for more info. maybe this link will work https://www.wanderlodgeownersgroup.com/downloads/TRW Hydrapower Integral Power Steering Gear.pdf

Watts linkage installed on front H-frame. Original TRW steering box pretty tight. Had wife move steering wheel while checking for looseness in tie rod ends/drag link, no noticeable play. Using velco wrap that is stationary on wheel rim. Pictures show 3-1/2" of movement in wheel from right to left steer with engine OFF. This is with wheel tilt to almost flat and measuring to reference point on dash. Moderate amount of pressure in turning wheel. Do not believe there is any movement in tires. If my math is correct, this is about 20 deg of wheel movement. If engine was running, tires would have moved a bit at this wheel rotation. Wondering if any one else has tried this measurement and how different MHs compare?

2004 MH, 46,000 miles and no records of the PS and Cooling Fan (side radiator) ATF and filters having been changed. Tall Nelson tank with 3 stacked filters. we are getting ready for a 5,000 mile trip in June and July. Changed the Allison a couple of weeks ago with 19 quarts of TranSynd and kept a sample of the oil. There is good info in some of the older posts on changing oil so will not do a step by step. I did use 3/8" poly clear hose to siphon out the liquid. Slow but cleaner than removing one of the hoses in the bottom. Tracing hoses, the large pump suction on my tank is outside of the filter. The cooling fan large return hose is on the inside of the filters. I siphoned the fluid and added back in 2 gallons of new. Started up the engine and ran for about 4 minutes. the two gallons was enough that the pump did not suck air. There was a small return line that was plumped into the bottom of the tank outside of the filter, a lot of flow, enough to push up above the oil surface. Size wise it is probably the PS pump return. I siphoned empty and no residue or particles in the bottom of the tank. replaced filters with NAPA gold. The rubber washer on one end was small and would barely fit over the angle iron center column of the tank. I pulled the small washer and used the larger washer of the filter above to seal. Refilled with 12 quarts of ATF. Compared this ATF to the Allison and both have the same dark red color. Over the years, I have seen people pull filters apart to see what is inside. I peeled one end cap off, used a chisel to cut through the almost rubbery compound used to lock in the filter material, and cut the media loose on the other end thru the other hole. The inside of the filter had very little fine particles in the media. in the 1/3 of the media I unrolled to review, there were less than 20 particles that could be seen by the naked eye. I would guess that the particles came from the original assembly of the system. I meant to check the particles with a magnet. I will over the next few days. My manual recommends changing filters on like a yearly basis. With what I have seen, I would not be concerned going "several" years between filter changes. If you went to the trouble of pulling apart and looking for debris every few years, it might give you an indication of coming issues. I am considering doing another change of fluid only when we get back from the trip to maybe have 70% of the ATF being relatively new.

Starting a car takes a pretty good amount of power. I don't believe a 5 minute run at idle will put all that back in. Unwrapped the trailer connector and wires at the rear of the motor home. 7 pin connector with 4 wires, left and right turn/stop coming from a Brite Lite module, tail lights, ground. Coming from the chassis wiring up stream of the Brite Lite is a "square" (really rectangular) 2 column by 3 row, 6 pin connector. Ground, left turn, right turn, stop, marker. Only one spare pin that has about a 12" pig tail. Looked on line and this is not wired at all like the "industry standard". Tried all positions of the ignition switch and could not get power to that pin. I have a several searchable copies of 2004-2006 wire diagrams that include the Scepter. Only two matches come up for "trailer". They are page 43 of my document, drawing number 38041505. One is talking about cutting a wire on one coach model, no help. The other is on the left side about midway down, level 6. The wiring to the trailer plug on this drawing shows the turn and brake combined for each side. That does not seem to be how mine is wired. I does include a wire for the back up light. I did not have a way of testing if that is what the 6th pin is. Will have wife put MH in reverse next time we are there together. Plenty of pins in the 7 pin connector going to the CRV. I have 15 amp circuit breakers on order. If I can not find a ignition switched circuit, I will wire to the engine battery with a switch and CB. Also ordered a small stick on rocker switch with 39" wire pigtail. Good video on U-tube were they used pliers to cut the plastic off the top of a blown fuse and soldered wires to the two pins. Will add a fuse holder in the pigtail. $10 bucks verses $60 for pre-made. Will be pretty simple and very reversible when we sell the car. If anybody has different wiring diagrams, I would sure like to see how this is really wired.

We have about 2,000 miles towing our Honda CRV with Blue Ox braking system and have not had any trouble with the battery running down. Will take a 5,000 mile trip in June and July with some pretty long days in mountainous terrain. Wondering what others have done to charge their toad battery from the MH. I have plenty of wire, fuse holders, and connectors so would rather purchase something that was just the minimum of components (lowest price) that will get the job done. E-trailer sells the Demco Battery Charger kit that contains a fuse and diode along with wire. Full MH voltage passes thru to the toad battery. Diodes are pretty cheap. I installed the wires on the CRV I would need to charge the battery when the baseplate went on. Would probably install a fuse at both ends of the charging wire. What are your thoughts?

Follow up to post. I did follow the advice given above about not trying to reseal the barb thread. Decided to replace with silicone hose. Have a couple of thousand miles on MH with no leaks. I can be tough to determine actual leak point. It was under the hose and looked like it was at the thread.

Tried to realign the hose today. It's not going to move easily so going to leave it as is. My surprise was that there is a part number under the grime and clamp. Got a good picture of part number. Will search for part as a spare. I did straighten the clamp to the upset enlarged end on the metal tube. I do not think at 30 psi it will blow off.

Finishing up the watts linkage today, torqued the tie rod ends and installed cotter pins. Was looking at the original Monroe shock on the front. Double rubber donuts on top stud did not look squashed. Twisted upper protector sleeve and very little resistance. Ended up tightening all 8 top studs as they were loose. Could not find a recommendation on how much they should be tightened so tightened until good resistance too rotation. Several months ago, I cut the foam along the front and rear edges of the rear wheel covers so they could be lifted up. Covered in a different post. Picture shows how "easy" it is to get into the wheel well to get to the stud. Tightening the rubber probably takes 1/4" of slack out of the shock rod moving with the shock body. Probably will not see any difference in ride. Only down side I see in cutting the foam on the wheel coves is that driving in rain water might be able to migrate water into other storage bays.

Update on the watts linkage installation. My bracket had enough welds to hold it together for normal driving. I installed my bracket, with the bell crank and tie rod ends that MonacoWatts provided. My wife and I went for a test drive drive on Thursday. Driving into a 20 mph wind at 65 mph and getting passed by big rigs had much less effect on the steering of the motor home. B4 I would have to initially correct in one direction and then counter correct as the wind coming off the front of the rig changed. On the test drive, the more the streamline the cab passing me in the same direction, the more air seemed to get pushed to the side and there was still about 40% of the previous corrections needed. On older non-aero cabs, no correction was require. Running down the road, several times I removed my hands from the wheel and the MH tracked pretty straight. My TRW steering box has been adjusted to less than 1/4" of slop at the edge of the wheel when reversing direction. There is still some vagueness is the steering that I will investigate. Making a U-turn and running with a 20 mph wind, there was NO influence being passed by rigs. My thought was they are only moving thru the wind at 45 mph and have a lot less air to push sideways. I am very please with the end results. Mike Hughs has been very helpful in discussing parts he had available. I am not sure how many would be interested in an installation like this. I do plan on starting another topic with details of how I did this. In discussions with Mike about how it could be much easier if he produced one of his parts slightly different. While under the MH sitting on a creeper in the space where the generator is normally stored, I noticed that there are two gussets attached on the front of the H-frame for the driver front shock. These gussets are about 6" from a square tube upright that is part of the generator roller cam rail. I had a 36" long 2x4 that I had been using to to support my new bracket. I wedged the end of the 2x into the shock gussets and pushed using the square tube as a fulcrum with about 20 lbs of force on the end of the 2x. That would result in about 100 lbs of force pushing the front of the H-frame towards the passenger side. With the watts linkage in place, I could see a very little amount of side ways movement when I pushed on the 2x. Friday I pulled the watts linkage off to finish welding and coat with paint. I moved the driver side clamping plate over to align with a tube on the gen support. I could easily see 1/32" or more of movement with the same 100 lbs loading. 100 lbs at the front would be the same as 250 lbs or so of side loading at the axle because the axle is about 1/3 the distance from the front. I estimated in one of the posts above over 2,000 lbs of side load from a .25G turn of the motor home. Not saying that there would be over 10 times the movement at the higher load. The resistance to moving sideways is ramping up in all the bushings the more it moves sideways. Just saying that the watts linkage is doing its job. I did use 8 bolts to anchor the top flange of the bracket to the MH frame crossmember, not the main frame rails. I went back to my text books. If the bolt hole diameter in a flange is less that 15% of the flange width, the strength of the flange is not compromised. With just one 5/16" holes across the 3.5" flange, there is still over 85% of the flange remaining. I have done other calcs to be sure this has enough strength. The good thing is that this is not holding up the MH. If it fails, the handling goes back to being sloppy. Always interested in suggestions.

When we first bought our MH, turning on the key to run would retract the jacks if they were down. I replaced my Nason parking brake switch as it started alarming all the time. Now I can start my engine without the jacks coming up. I was warming up the engine to check transmission level with the MH jacks down. Going into drive to warm the engine created all sorts of alarms until the jacks were fully up. I did a write up on changing the parking brake switch and it has the least expensive source I found to purchase the switch. Some Power Gear jacks have grease zerks. The manual states they should be greased every 20 cycles of the jacks or so. My jacks were not coming up while on a long trip. Read the manual, two squirts of grease in each jack, rotating the pads while returning them to the original orientation and I now have full retraction. Then I adjusted fluid level so that float switch in reservoir closed the circuit and no longer have any jack issues.

I originally had a relay similar to yours on our 2004 HR. The blue sea ACR monitors the voltage on both sides, chassis and house. If one battery bank reaches the charge threshold, something like 13.8 volts on one side, it closes the relay contacts between the two battery bank. There is a built in delay b4 it pulls in. I install the ACR about 6 months ago and have been very pleased. If you are on shore power, the batteries will be combined. I do not believe it drops the relay if you start the engine so you are drawing some current from the house bank during the starter current draw. Not all owners start their engine with shore power on. If the Blue Sea switch is installed, you can isolate the bank b4 starting. Occasionally my alternator light will come on until I disconnect shore power. The relay has a manual switch to not allow the relay to pull in, When I equalize my house bank, I use the manual switch so that the maintenance free engine batteries are not seeing 15 volts DC. I have pulled wires and will be installing the blue sea switch b4 our June 1 trip.

As the OP of this topic, it sometimes takes a while for projects to get started. We will be driving around 5,000 miles in June and July. With the help and patience of Mike Hughes at MonacoWatts, I finally got my parts ordered and delivered. I am install a watts linkage at the front of my front H-Frame, between the crossmember and my air tank. This gets it as far from the panhard rod (3X) as possible to help in stabilizing the H-frame. Pictures shows Mike's parts in a mock up situation with some of the steel I will be using to build a bracket. Today was a storage bay day. Tomorrow I get to use a friends fabrication equipment. The frame I am building will initially be bolted together to get it mocked up and then welded as a frame. The upper angle will bolt to the chassis frame cross member. expecting to add a couple of diagonals to keep the frame from moving for and aft. looking for 4" x 4" x 1/4" or 3/8" by 19" long angle to bolt to frame. 3x3x3/16 short section shown in the picture ( orange bar clamp holding it in place). Found 3" wide c-channel, 1.5" flange to be the vertical supports that bolt to the upper angle at the top (vice grips in picture) and the sides of the bell crank bracket Mike provided, (vice grips that you can not see). These parts were part of a kit that had the bell crank at the center maybe attached to a jack. The crank is much longer than needed to get the tie rods away from the center bracket, I think. It has to be installed at this angle to get the tie rods parallel to the H-frame. Taking this picture, I'm setting on a creeper in the generator bay looking toward the rear. Without the pull out generator slide, this modification would be really difficult. MH wheels are on 3" of wood blocks and jack stands under the frame. Air bags are at road height. MH now has X-braces at the rear. Coach came with a TRW steering box and I have removed most of the play. Expect to re-address once the linkage is in place. Hope to have it in and tested within a couple of weeks or so.

We now have about 8 months of ownership of our MH. Spent January in Corpus Christi and February in Brownsville so saw a lot of different motor homes. Wanting to make cloth tire covers. There is the traditional cover that is fits fairly tight over the tire. Also saw a lot of covers that were flat panels with snaps that went on the outside of the wheel well. This would typically require drilling a hole for the snaps on the out side of the body. wondering if anyone has come up with a method using maybe 3/4" PVC pipe as a "curtain rod" at the top of the panel that hangs on a bracket or something on the inside of the wheel well. We store the motor home in an enclosed bay so it is only outside when we travel.

I have come up with a new thought. Hose is 14" long with about 2" overlap each end. That would make it 10" between the two metal tubes. If the additional 4"long metal tube is moved against the CAC tube and a 4" length of straight hose is slide 2" over the CAC pipe and 2" of the new pipe. Then I would have 6" between the new metal tube and the turbo pipe. I can buy a 10" hose. Maybe use a clamp over the interface between the CAC and new tube to align and give the straight hose extra support as well as clamps in the normal position. Trying to be creative in a solution that will work. Wondering if there is a lubricant that is compatible with the silicone that will dissipate to keep from allowing the hose to slide after clamped.

REV group parts responded with radiator hoses. Sent back a request for the turbo piping. The diagram and pictures for the radiator hoses and tubes was great info. Riff Raff Diesel only goes to 3-1/4" or so. Waiting on info from gates. Spent 3 hours and $15 at the truck bay of a local car wash. Got over 90% of the old grease/oil off the underside of the engine and cleaned the area of the hose that needs to be slid back onto the pipe. maybe a little more cleaning with simple green and a brush b4 I try to slide it back on. Drove 20 miles to get everything hot and dry. checked and already have a bit of oil out the slober tube. Will be fabricating a bottle to catch oil to help keep things clean.

Thanks Ivan for jogging my memory. The first ring is 2-5/8" from the end so that is all that could be slide on the tube. Using a straight section of tubing will probably not work. Looking at other options

measured both hoses today. the inlet to the CAC (hot side) is 14" long with 7 steel rings. The discharge from the CAC back to the intake manifold is 8" long with 3 rings. initial searches show the longest hose available at 12", $141 at HPS. Priced qty 2 of 6" long hoses, 4 clamps with a 6" center aluminum tube at over $200. There is 10" between the two tubes that the hose slides on. concerned about getting the hoses on with the tube in the middle. the tube on the CAC is straight for about 4" past the normal end of the hose. I may be able to slide the hose far enough on to get every thing together. other option is a 6' and 8" hose with a 3" aluminum tube. The plan is to power wash the engine and these connections on Friday when it warms up a bit. having this clean will be critical to not getting dirt inside the tubes. any sources I should be checking out?

after a week in Brownsville TX connected to 50 psi city water, we came home one afternoon to a lot of water under the MH. Found the fresh water tank overflow just in front of passenger side rear wheels flowing a trickle of water. shut off city water and ran off tank for a few days. would then alternate between tank and city connect. When traveling and not connected to city water, I have had to switch valve to fill tank position to keep pump from back flowing thru inlet port. Pulled diverter valve out from behind water bay panel. Disassembled valve and ball was crusted with calcium. Teflon seats looked ok. Found a tube that fit tightly into the port of the valve ball, spun with drill and polished with brasso and then Fritz. Looked really good. There is a check valve in one of the outlets to the valve. There was a BB size chunk of something that would hold the check off the seat. reassembled and had good resistance from seats. screwed PVC cap onto one of the outlets. connected hose to inlet and pressurized at the house. Turns out the seats were not as good as I thought. pretty good trickle. Called Watts and 2004 era valves no longer have replacement parts and the next generation valve is not available. all the brass valves I could find were out of stock. purchased a SS valve of a little different configuration for $60 delivered. installed and it is not leaking off the pump. the valve mounts differently and came home to make a new mounting plate. have not moved MH to water faucet to check fill from hose. I can not find were any one else was having similar problems.

Doing preventive maintenance and looking at most everything prior to 4,000 mile trip in June. Side radiator ISC 8.3. I believe there is a hard pipe from the air side of the turbo down to the level of the charger air cooler. The hard pipe turns towards the side radiator on passenger side. Have not measured but the hose connecting appears to be 4" dia by around 12" long. As shown in the picture, the end of the hose has pulled away from a ridge on the hard pipe about 1/2". The clamp appears to be at an angle. If a replacement hose is available, I would like to replace and not rely on the deformed hose. Has any one replaced this and/or know of a source for replacement hose and clamps. the hose has several bellows with wire rings to compensate for engine movement.

On the topic of entry door lock but a little different. Owned our 2004 for about 7 months and the key fob push buttons were backwards for locking entry door. Lock button locked cargo doors but unlocked entry door. Unlock button locked entry door. Roman numeral "ONE" button unlocked compartment doors. I adjusted my door latch a few weeks ago and had hoped I could reverse the wires but they were pulled tight and not enough slack to change. While thinking about the projects to do one morning laying it bed, I realized that the power into the door to lock and unlock came thru the contacts at the door jam. The flat contacts on the door had two sets of rub marks. Two screws, reversed the plate and now it works like it should. Not sure why the PO would have pulled the contacts off but one of the simplest fixes I have made on the MH. Will see if I can program the keypad this week.

G Mike, I plugged in the type of ur MH and it appears yours is 42' which probably should give you a tag axle. RR10x chassis ? You stated that the front drivers side leaked down and that at first had me questioning how that could happen. My assumption is that you have one height control valve at the front and one each side at the rear drive axle. the tag axles seem to have a single pressure regulator to supply both rear air bags. as the front and tag airbags should be connected side to side, they would not contribute to keeping the MH from leaning, air just moves from one side to the other thru the tubing from side to side. If your rear is not dropping, it may have something to do with the tag axle. Measuring from plate to plate on top and bottom of the air bags on each side. this will give you some idea of where the tilting is coming from. If your MH is leaning in an hour, you have some major leaks. My first leak was the over pressure valve in my front air tank. $20 and less than an hour install and air leak went to less that 10 psi an hour. As big as your air leak is you should be able to hear as you have on a couple. I was going to change the rear safety valve but it does not have one on my MH. A leak this big could be causing your engine compressor to run excessively. If you find that the driver rear is also tilting, there are maybe five obvious leak paths. The fittings (#1) in the level circuit are: straight QC fitting at HCV, airline from outlet to tee two swivel tees on each side of a bulkhead fitting on the frame above the axle, lines to these are air source from HCV, line to dump valve probably in engine compartment, line to each of the two air bags. fittings in top of each air bag. 7 fittings to spray down under the MH. I have purchased DOT compression fittings and changing out the quick connects as I work thru the air lines. I could only find the swivel tees, tube x tube x npt, in a QC fitting. While at the HCV (#2), spray all over the valve, both fittings in the top and the horizontal air tube about 3" long that is the exhaust. spray soap into the tubing to confirm the valve is not leaking to the exhaust. I found a new HCV was leaking at the 4 bolt flange that held this exhaust tube. Look in your engine room to see if you can find your air dump valves(#3). If you can not find them, have some hit the dump valve switch while you are at the rear. You should be able to hear the air exhaust. spray the fitting and the exhaust of the valve. It should have a screened fitting that you can spray with soap. the screen keeps bugs out of the port. Another possibility is that you HCV check valve under the inlet fitting(#4), a ball and spring, is allowing air to back feed to the tank as it gets below around 70 psi. My engine compressor cycles the tank between 90 and 125 psi when the engine is running. air bags need around 60 to 70 psi to get to full ride height. I replaced the air lines and fittings on my driver rear two air bags. I believe there may have been a leak in the airline due to a previous owner tire blowout. Also replaced the HCV. My MH stays level for days even when the tank has gone to 30 psi in about 48 hours. While not real common, air bags (#5) have been know to leak. takes lots of soap solution to really cover them. While under the MH, u might take a good look at the rubber fittings on the links to the HCVs. Mine where full of cracks and about to separate. A broken fitting would disconnect from the HCV and would no longer be reading the correct ride height and would either fill or bleed air from the bags and be a major problem Send me a PM if you have more questions and we can talk direct.