Bob Jones

Every time I see some nice new unit that costs $$ I ask myself what it would cost me to completely redo the interior of my 2000 Diplomat. I bet I would be hard pressed to spend $10k to completely redo it soup to nuts with nothing but high-end stuff. To me, if the layout works and I'm happy with the chassis then it's just a matter of making it the way you want. I'm thinking gorgeous heated tile floor, new couch etc. The small square footage, to me, means you could buy some pretty extravagant stuff. Gold fixtures? All new lights? I recently got my Dad a new Coachmen Pursuit (29 foot gasser). We then put residential solar on it, vent covers, tracking sat system and things like that. In short, we twiddled it up to get it to what he wanted. This made it very economical (in the grand scheme of things) and it's now just about perfect. I've seen some threads from people that did remarkable work on redoing their interiors. On mine, the frame and ride are incredible. The drivetrain seems to be million-mile quality. So if the box and the chassis works then to me it's just the interior.

As others have said, the door needs to float. Because I'm parked long-term I run the unit once a month along with the genset until both reach operating temperature. When I do that, the air suspension raises the unit off the jacks. I have noticed, every time, that the door realigns itself. It goes from being difficult to smooth each time. My observations tend to prove that it needs to float and that the door re-aligns itself to the proper position. I use the door getting sticky as a sign that it's time to run the unit. Now before everyone states that you should never idle the unit, on mine you can raise the idle fairly high and this allows it to get to operating temperature. It is always better to take the unit out for a drive to work the transmission, brakes, tires etc.

Apparently they come with plants too...

She really gets around....but it's often a team effort! Both of them are immortalized in my generator lid...

I'm going to declare victory on this one 🙂 The inverter has been working perfectly, the issue with it dropping the outlets has not come back (fingers crossed) but it's very clear that the inverter's operation has changed. In fact, it's changed a lot! I know that the relay contacts are now clean but I have to say, I think the ultrasonic cleaning did a real number on it. There was a lot of dust and sand in there, no doubt from Palm Desert and the Sonoran (?) desert? My parents spent 3 months a year at FOY for many years (almost 20?) and the unit also spent time in Mexico somewhere, along with AZ and other places with sand and wind. There was also tiny particles in there that looked like magnetized iron filings stuck to things. Anyway... I've noticed some changes, most of them seem to be with the charging circuit? Absorption stage now works. In the past, if it went into absorption it would only be for a few minutes. Often it skipped the stage entirely because the bulk charge voltage seemed to get the battery volts too high. This was deemed normal by others in the know when I last asked about it. The interior lights (all 12v) seem to be consistent in light output. They used to be dim at times and bright at others and it really bugged me. I suspect this also tracks back to the charge circuit keeping the batteries at a constant level. The bathroom fan used to speed up a great deal when I turned off the light in the bathroom or the lights at the vanity. Now it stays at the same speed. Once the batteries are fully charged the panel indicator lights no longer flicker all the time between charge and float (regardless of 12v load). They now spend 90% of their time locked on Float with the voltage locked as well. Ie, the voltage is stable. Really stable. The inverter used to buzz a lot. Now, when the batteries are full and stabilized, it's silent. I put my ear right on the unit and still could not hear anything. The ultrasonic cleaning removed all the dirt & debris and I know it cleans all the contacts and solder points. These are just my observations, nothing scientific, but from what I'm seeing, the operation has changed a lot. Stable and consistent are the words that come to mind. Almost forgot one. Because the voltage on the panel is now so stable I saw yesterday that it was at 13.0 volts and when the ambient temp got colder it went up to 13.50. You could never 'see' the battery temperature compensation work before because the lights indicating the voltage were so sporadic and all over the place. Anyway, just wanted to give up an update after a few days. If the original complaint (dropping inverter outlets when there is shore power present) comes back, I'll post about it. Many thanks to all that helped! Knowing the contacts are clean on that relay makes me feel a lot better. They were pitted and they all had some level of arc burn on them. But when I look at the panel and see three green lights that are not flickering or moving around, I know it's operating like it used to back when Dad bought it nearly new all those years ago.

If you're going that route I would suggest stepping up a little further to the Helium filled units. Your fridge will be lighter! 🙂

I think you would be better off ingratiating yourself with knowledgeable RV'ers 🙂 Paying someone outright (like a shop) to fix all of that would be big bucks. If you're lucky, it could easily be a lot of small things - you just have to get it back to stock. I've seen people like that before and had a vehicle (or two) like that before. Many times all it took was getting it back to stock (fixing what the person 'fixing' it did) and then determining what the real issue was....and properly fixing it. So it might not be that bad. With any RV purchase, you have to budget in spending dollars to address stuff. Batteries are so common to replace you might as well just add them to the budget right away. Trojan makes good ones. In the US you can usually get a good deal on an inverter from Magnum. You'd be surprised how much you can do with a couple thousands bucks if you're willing to do some work.

Sure...now where did I put that forklift...? I had it just the other day! 🙂

Interesting. I am on Vancouver Island and this means the ambient temperature, at times, swings 10 degrees, or more, through the day. It's normal for the ambient temp to go from 15c (59) to 25c (77) at certain periods of the year. Or from nearly 0c to 15c during the day. Recently we hit a high of 38c (100) ambient for about a week. I monitor the temps of the fridge through my LCD panel many times a day because it's so easy. So, annually, my fridge works from 19.4f through to 100f ambient temperatures. Point being though is this. I run it on #2 for probably 98% of the year and only on #3 during the hottest part of August. So ambient temperatures or airflow should not make differences like you are seeing. That's assuming it's on AC though, like mine. I have no idea what it would do on propane. I bet the hardest part of installing that Frigidaire would be making the dolly for it to sit on to maneuver it into place 🙂 That, and physically removing the Norcold from the motorhome. But if a guy is just scrapping the Norcold, many people have taken a Sawzall to it and cut it into little pieces that easily fit through the door. Just sayin' 🙂 Not trying to tell you what to do! When I take mine out I will have to be very careful. I've been told I can easily get $500 for it because it works so well. So in my case, the Frigidaire will go in real easy but the Norcold coming out might be very tough without damaging it.

Hi Bob! Don't get me wrong, I love my Norcold. But...it's a power PIG and when the weatherstripping on the doors goes you have to buy new doors ~$1,000 When the hinges go, you have to buy new doors. There ARE issues with it, none of which I'm faced with right now and mine is ice cold. I tossed around the idea of a Samsung install. A lot of work that I prefer not to do. Hard to get in the door. High cost. High weight. Big hassle (although, that is relative to what you get). I am one person so the Norcold is usually big enough. But every month I look at the power bill and realize I'm wasting power. It's usually around $100. If I put in the Frigidaire I am sure it would be ~$50. That's a 50% reduction. I've got a kill-a-watt on the Norcold right now so I will see, exactly, what it costs me to run that thing per month but I know it sucks almost 500 watts. That's HUGE in a motorhome. My modern TV's take 20-40 depending on screen size. Of all the things in my motorhome, there are two pigs, other than the AC, and that's the dehumidifier, 500 watts, and the Norcold, 500 watts. Everything else is very power efficient. Since yours appears to have an odd sealing issue...and you have it out, by the looks of it....and now you know about future expenses and the fire issue...and you know about how thrifty the Frigidaire is....All I can say is that, from the other guy's install, he had to do nothing but put a little bit of wood trim around it because it was a tiny bit smaller. To me, that's plug 'n play. For that matter, a guy could put trim on later. But at 130 pounds? With the doors on it? To me, that 'little' Frigidaire could be installed very easily through the front door. If a person takes the doors off it first it would weigh much less. To me, those are the real issues with a residential fridge. If people can get the Samsung through the door, and they have, how much easier would it be with that little fridge? And it's still bigger than the Norcold. And it uses WAY less power.....you could say...it's food for thought 🙂 Unspoiled food that you don't have to throw out or get botulism from! I am probably the only person in the world with an ice cold Norcold running in it's more/less original trim. So I am unbiased, and, if anything, favor the Norcold because I made it do what, seemingly, no-one could. But the facts can't be denied. It's problematic and it's costly. The people slamming it are doing it for good reason and...at the end of the day, unless you replace that cooling unit, it's a serious fire hazard. And then there is the time you have to spend on the Norcold (still) and you may or may not even know what the scoop is. If you research that specific fridge you will find the Energy Guide sticker that says it uses $40 per year in electricity at .12 per KWH. That is $3.33 per month. No matter how you slice it, electricity is a recurring cost. Whether it's genset run time, battery time or whatever. The less used, the better. It takes a LOT of solar ($$$) to power a Norcold on AC. You can see the post from the guy that used that fridge (Kevin R) over here => When I saw that post I started researching that fridge based on it being PNP...

@SteveJThose are really good temps for setting #2!

I'll probably get shot for this (I fear it as I'm 'new' to the site) but I was recently looking at the Frigidaire # FFHT1425VV as someone else here used it. By the looks of it, it's plug n' play even though I have a furnace under my fridge (so did he). Up here, in Canada, that fridge is $850 in stainless and less in white. That's about $670 USD but it's likely to be cheaper in the US due to competition. Cheaper yet if you don't go for the stainless. That fridge costs $40 to run per YEAR based on .12c per KWH. What that means is that it costs less to run that fridge for one year then it does for my Norcold for one month...... In my case, that fridge will pay for itself very quickly. But here's the thing, I know from experience that my 4 Trojan batteries will power the Norcold for about 10 hours, roughly. How long would those batteries power a fridge that uses a fraction of the power of the Norcold? Probably days. To me, that would be a massive benefit to anyone boondocking. Then you get the benefit of not having to deal with door seals, the complexity of it, the chance of a leak, and...most importantly, the fact that they are known to burn a unit to the ground very, very quickly. One guy on this site went through that and he won't set foot in a unit with a Norcold because it freaked him out that badly. Apparently these things burn very very fast. Scary fast from the sounds of it. If my Norcold was not performing so well, I would be down at the store right now buying a Frigidaire # FFHT1425VV as fast as I could. The power saving alone makes it pay for itself in about 1.5 years. The reduction in fire risk? Probably priceless. The reduction in load on the inverter? Massive benefit. Just my 0.02c worth. But it seems to me, that for boondocking, you want something that uses little power. Bear in mind, I refuse to run mine on propane because of the open flame in proximity to the flammable gases in the back of the fridge.....

One thing I found out about our Norcold is that it is the only place on earth that defies the laws of physics! Like everyone else, I could not keep it cold enough even on setting #9. It was not safe to keep ground beef in the freezer for any length of time. I had some extra 120mm computer fans lying around and put one blowing across the inside fins at the back of the fridge compartment. Next thing you know, all the pop and milk froze solid. I then bought one of those $25 wireless thermometer dealies that measures the temp in the fridge and the freezer in real-time and displays it on the wall. What I found was that the top of the fridge was well below freezing and the bottom was not. So, in a Norcold, hot air DOES NOT RISE. Thus the laws of physics cease to exist inside it. Because I had the temperature monitoring dealy I could determine exactly what worked and what did not. So this is what I found. Ideally, you want one 120mm fan blowing across the aluminum fins in the back. Then you want another 120mm fan on the bottom left of the fridge blowing straight across to the bottom right. On the bottom right you want one more 120mm blowing straight up to the fan blowing across the fins. In this way, you create a circular air movement inside the fridge. The hot air gets blown up to the fan that blow it across the fins. I only have two right now, one blowing across the fins and one on the bottom right blowing up to the one that blows across the fins. Anyway, in my case, this reduced my fridge and freezer temps from setting #9 (max) to setting #2 (one up from the bottom). We had 38c weather here (100.4f) and I had to turn it up ONE setting to #3 and even that was risky because it will freeze the contents of the fridge. I don't know whether my 1200LRIM is special or anything. All I know is that is ALL that was required to make it freeze everything. My issue today is dancing around freezing the contents of the fridge! I am certain that if I installed one more fan on the bottom left, blowing across the bottom to the fan that blows up to the one blowing across the fins, I would be able to run it on #1 (!!!!!!) Here is a pic, in Celsius, of the 1200 LRIM on a typical 22c day (72f) with the freezer at -15 and the fridge at ~1c BTW, This is running on AC. Also, BTW, all the other reasons to replace it are valid, such as doors etc. But in my case, it's really cold. And the answer, for me, was to get the air inside the fridge to circulate in a continuous circle which is very easy and cheap. Also, my fridge is 22 years old. I don't know if that is all that's wrong with yours, but in my case, my problem is the fridge is too cold and, as a result, runs much less. Go figure.

I hate to do it to you, Richard - it's a 1200 LRIM I know, it's hard to believe, so here's a pic of the temps on a warm summer day on setting #2 For the record though, I'm in complete agreement with respect to the doors and everything else. There are many reasons to replace it. That will happen, but as it stands, the only reason right now is because it's a power pig!

I'll bite, and probably get shot for this! I really like my Norcold. It WAS a POS but one day I decided to fix the stupid thing. I found out the heater wire in the door was broken, fixed that in about 30 minutes. Then I got a wireless digital thermometer to measure the freezer temp and the fridge temp. At that point I started experimenting. I had several 120mm computer fans lying around so I velcro'd one so that it blew across the fins from right to left. That made an immediate and massive difference! I then did some more testing and realized that in order to get proper circulation (even temps) I needed one more fan blowing up from the bottom to the fan at the top. Again, massive difference. I went from running the fridge on #9 all the way down to number 2. In the height of the summer with 38c temps I set it to #3. If I set it to number 5 (half way) it will freeze everything in the fridge compartment. Maybe I just got lucky? Average freezer temp on #2 is; -15c and average fridge temp is 1c It's now 22 years old and I shut the propane valve off on it a long time ago. I will replace it, probably soon, with a Whirlpool residential, but it will be a sad day. The reason? The Norcold is a power pig on AC and costs as much to run in one month as a modern fridge does in a year. No kidding. Of course, I'm partial to the Norcold because I souped it up for very little...and I may be the only person that has one that has, if anything, a problem with being way too cold.

So far...so good. It's back in and charging and I've tested the inverter operation several times so...the relay is working OK at this point. Time will tell if the intermittent issue is gone. But...what is interesting, is the buzzing noise the inverter used to make is much quieter and a higher pitch. Go figure. Fan works, charger works, relay works, it looks like I didn't introduce a problem and that's always a good thing. Plus, I learned a lot. If it packs it in, I can bypass it. I also realize that I can replace the relay without taking the entire thing apart. Here's some pics for anyone interested....that date code is correct, it's from 1999.....they made them a LOT better back then...

Thanks Richard - that is the one that I have (L model in 1500 watts). I'm just about to re-install so will be offline again. I'll know in short order whether I missed any connections inside or put them in the wrong place........or just generally screwed it up 🙂 I did take pictures of everything before dissasembly and checked and double-checked them during reassembly. I'm as sure as can be that it's correct. If cleaning the 'points' did the trick I should know soon! Likewise if I introduced a problem. One thing is sure though, I know more about how it works than I did before.

That makes perfect sense. But it also makes me wonder why mine is working. Perhaps it's wired differently. I even went out there and made sure the ground to the rear of my inverter was not touching ground - still works.

I think Ken nailed it - good call! This does make me wonder though about your vehicles grounds. On my inverter there is a bare thin copper ground wire that runs to the rear of the inverter. If yours has the same perhaps it's only grounding through there? It might be something to keep in the back of your mind to look into when you have time as it *might* indicate you have a ground issue? I'm no expert, but it sticks out in my mind. I'll try the auto parts store today although the rivets are a little odd. Not the normal push in button type but they seem to literally be a type of plastic rivet. Plan change! I've got the unit all back together. It's going to take a long time for the new relay to show up so what I did was take the relay contacts off (pretty simple, remove the spring and then the arm lifts off). Then I could see the contacts and cleaned them up with emery paper. I'll put it back in today and see what happens. I took lots of pics. Here's some. My ultrasonic cleaner was not large enough to do the whole board at once 😞

Hi Jim - I don't know how you couldn't have 12v if the disconnect switch to the coach batteries was not turned off. Yours must be wired differently than mine? As you can see in the pic, on mine I did not disconnect the battery cables from anywhere other than at the back of the inverter. Do you have some kind of battery management system or something that could interfere with the 12v? I'd have to see a picture of how it's wired to come up with an idea on that one. My system/motorhome is pretty simple in that respect. There is no other battery management than the inverter.

I got the board out and cleaned up as well as the rest of the inverter. I took the cover off of the relay and there was corrosion on one of the terminals and signs of wear on the others. It's very hard to determine how bad it is without removing it from the board. I ordered up a new relay because if I have to remove it from the board, might as well put a new one in. $75 CAD delivered. I think it's worth the shot and now that I've jimmied power to the motorhome I can wait for the shipping..... The board is held in place with plastic rivets which will need to be replaced. Add in another $25 and I'm into it for $100 even. I suspect it will work 🙂

Hahaha - great minds think alike! I came to that same conclusion when I started disconnecting and everything in the motorhome went off. And then it came to me, why not just wire the input and the output together and away you go? After that, I realized that everything in the motorhome that runs on 12v was going to kill the coach batteries because the charger has been removed. So I had to put a temporary charger in there too! One of the pics shows the clear plastic case of the relay which is the suspect.

No way man, we're in this together 😉 I'm about to pull the inverter, which means, you won't hear from me for a while because the Internet and TV and all the important things run off the inverter. If you don't hear from me for a long time, it's because I have received a massive shock and am in need of defibrillation, which will probably never come as I am here alone 🙂 I'll take pictures so you guys can live vicariously through me without doing any of the work! 🙂 First stop will be putting the inverter on my desk, draining the capacitors and then examining the contacts on the relay. If they look good, then there is probably no point in going further. Back soon..wish me luck! 🙂

Hi Jim! I think you probably nailed it with respect to the internal transfer switch (hereafter, relay). You are correct, my inverter appears to have a power in line and power out. I'm assuming the feed to the inverter comes from the breaker panel above my bed and that the feed going out of the inverter goes to the outlets it powers. Other than that, two large DC cables at the rear connected to the batteries. The relay is pretty easy to get at on mine and I have a hot air rework soldering station with all the goodies. So replacing it would be easy. But, if I'm in there I would also use my ultrasonic cleaner on the boards and get them like new. To be honest, I wanted to go in there and clean it for some time (I know, it's odd, but I have the gear to do it). It's a beautiful conformal coated board and I have a good multimeter so I could even test the capacitors and resistors etc. According to Deltrol, that relay is rated: Expected Life Electrical at Rated Load (Min.) 100,000 Operations | Mechanical Life 10,000,000 Operations This makes me wonder if it's even required to replace the relay. I'm wondering if a few minutes with a points file on the contacts would case it. It does look like the plastic cover on the relay is removable...and I did see some posts from others that had a similar issue with their relay and one fella used DeOxIt on it and said it was good for 4 years since his 'repair' 🙂 I did look up the people you recommended calling, they are closed until Monday. If 'our' suspicions are right I could have this thing done by tomorrow. @waterskier - Only the inverter outlets dropped off-line. The rest of the outlets continued to have power. My Norcold is entirely powered by the inverter, it seems Monaco's really are snowflakes 🙂 There is no energy management on this unit. It's a 2000 Diplomat so it's pretty basic in that respect. 50 Amps from the pedestal to the transfer switch and then it looks like the power feed to the inverter is on a circuit breaker in my bedroom. That's about it. The power in this park is very good, there is virtually no chance of a feed issue.

Update: I took the case of the inverter and from what I can see, there is only one relay in it. It's a Deltrol Controls 23523-70 and it's still widely available. Looks like it's about $60 all in.