Rocketman3

Hello everyone, I have a 2000 Dynasty 36’. And I am installing the Air Force One braking system. Ok I am a bit confused… I need to identify a metered air connection and a supply air connection. The manual just says Roadmasters are like Freightliners… Part of my problem is I don’t know what the parts under my rig are and what they do. Also, I remember seeing an air diagram of a 2000 Monaco somewhere? Any idea where it is? I took the following photos (from the ground), can you please help me identify the parts (what they are called and what they do). 1st photo - there are two of these. 2nd photo - there are two of these in the photo(right next to each other). 3rd photo - only one of These. Thank you for your help!

I keep my insurance #’s higher and have the Umbrella policy. The part that would concern me is if I am in an accident with the Monaco - it is so large and heavy- and other cars are cheap tin can’s My rig could do some serious damage and cause significant medical bills. Good Luck with your decision

In my opinion the reason to disconnect is because the SCC will use a little bit of power 24/7. However, that will not matter for you because you plug in your rig. So - owners choice… to disconnect the SCC or not… (I would leave it connected).

Yes it is handy stuff. What continues to amaze me is how well built our Monaco’s are. My basement door latch broke, so I replaced it yesterday. The plastic panel was pop-riveted in place and then it was glued. In the door cavity was fiberglass insulation. So the doors have some insulation- but more is better.

Chains for the tires may be necessary. You may also not move if the weather is bad Also make sure the windshield washer fluid is cold rated. We plan around storms and don’t move if roads are not completely dry in winter. Also winter is the only time I prefer interstates - usually I prefer smaller roads. Good Luck!

I put in a Fisher & Paykel - it’s height was an inch or so shorter than the other ones I looked at. I needed to gain a bit of height by lowering my furnace (it was up on a 2x4) and then lowered the floor of the fridge compartment. so I needed a couple of inches for height- then it was slightly narrower than the “Never Cold”. I added a 2” oak strip (1/4” thick) on the side for trim to finish it off - and match the oak kitchen. I have really liked this fridge (installed last December). Best Buy could order them in. It was a bit more expensive, but the size fit well. Model# RF170 ADX 4N to get it in the MotorHome, took out the chairs, took off the closing bar on the door - so it would max swing, took the doors off the new fridge, added painters to tape to the doorway and two big delivery dudes lifted it into the MotorHome. The old one came out easily- after the sawzall put in on a “diet”. We full-time, added 400w of solar to cover the power. To keep the doors closed when traveling- we added some stainless steel loops to the wood on the side, then we just use a strap that goes through the loops to hold the door closed (one for fridge, one for freezer). We were amazed at how much more room we had in the new fridge and freezer! Good Luck

I think one of the best items to help figure out problems like this is to install a Victron Smartshunt or BMV712. it is also really nice because it lets you know how full/empty the batteries are. Plus the time until batteries empty is really great! Do you have a propane/electric fridge that was on electric when camping?

I hope a truck tires shop can take care of me. My size is a common truck size.

That looks interesting… can you show a complete picture of it now installed. thanks

What about your power steering pump - is any noise related to turning the wheel?

Some Ace stores have the door switches in stock (that’s where I got mine when it died).

I found the oem conduit chase on the drivers side had the least amount of wires in it. I opened it up (removed the spray foam), then I have some 2’ fiberglass rods that screw together (from Amazon) put them in and got it through. Pulled a rope through and tied it up on both ends. (left the rope). Later, I was able to get the fuel return line plus two sets of wire lines pulled through. I left the rope in and resealed the conduit - just in case I need another at some point. But it is getting harder to get stuff through.

I used ISSOPRO for my dash gauges. Fuel pressure and pyrometer. I used gloshift for the mechanical gauge in the rear. I liked the ISSOPRO because I could select ones that looked like they matched the original gauges. Also I had them make me “special” harness, at 50 foot (for my 36’ rig). I cut off less than 2 feet on the fuel pressure and cut-off about 8 to 10 feet on the pyrometer. you will need a snobber for the fuel pressure

The biggest issue (in my opinion) is NOT the inverters or the SCC (solar charge controller), it is the alternator. Currently (if your rig is standard), the alternator will charge the lithiums whenever the engine is on. This can cause two problems. 1. The batteries will take all the current your alternator will provide. This will cause the alternator to run at 100% until the battery is full or the alternator overheats and dies. 2. Lithium’s do not like to be kept at 14.x (14.0 to 14.4volts) all the time. They like to be charged full, maybe an absorbing charge for a little while, then the charger turned off - or at least dropped to a float voltage of 13.5v. There are a few ways of solving these two issues. 1. What I did was to break the connection between the alternator and house bank. Now the alternator no longer charges the lithium’s. I did add a 30a Victron Dc-Dc non-isolated charger. This will charge my lithium’s at 30 amps when the engine is running. That is pretty slow. If your 400a bank was down 210a (just over half down), that would take 7 hours of driving to recharge. 2. There are some devices that will turn the alternator charging on and off so it gives the alternator time to cool down. LiFePO4 Battery Isolation Manager (BIM) is one I have heard good things about) Depending on your rig, the engine battery gets topped off when there is excess current in the house battery (like when you are plugged in), you need to make sure this gets worked out if it gets disconnected when fixing the alternator issues. Now once you solve the alternator issues… The RV-45D solar charge controller, There may be settings that will “ kinda work” for the lithiums, but I would consider replacing it with a Victron MPPT 100/30. That will handle your 400w of solar. (Or maybe go more solar and get a bigger SCC). (See below on temp compensation and equalization - they MUST be disabled. The same with the inverters- there may be a settings that will work - Gell might be close enough… but you MUST disable the temperature compensation and the equalization. Both can charge the lithium’s WAY too high of voltage. in my opinion you want the most common charging source for how you use your rig to treat the lithium’s exactly how they want to be charged. This could be as simple as disabling the charger part of the Trace’s, and adding a dedicated 120v lithium battery charger. My trace inverter was dying on me so I replaced it with a Victron Multiplus inverter/charger. Later when I put in the lithium’s- I just adjusted it to the lithium settings I wanted. Good Luck. (Sorry for such a long post).

In my 2000 dynasty I have 2 continuous relays that are switched by the salesman switch. Ones goes to the domestic 12v fuse panel in the back. The other goes to the drivers lower fuses. I also had that same relay die on me too. Later I changed out the continuous relays and replaced them with Victron Smart Battery protect (BP-65). I did this for two reasons first to reduce the continuous electrical draw (we full-time in our rig). The second is to prevent a complete battery drain if the battery gets low- it shuts off at 11.5v (I set that voltage). Good Luck!

I just replaced my 4008. It developed a very small weep along the pump seal gasket. After 6 months of use (we full-time) it was happening more and more often… the weep finally developed into a small drip, so we found it and pulled it.

One place to start is to verify the battery maintainer is charging the chassis batteries. After you have been sitting for a while, put a multimeter on the chassis battery. Is the voltage showing what you would expect if the maintainer is running as it should? good luck!

Whenever I drive I have it on. My laptop screen can fold completely back so then it is like a tablet. Then I use a Ram mount for a tablet. I have a usb mouse and usb keyboard in case I need to do something (like add fuel). I have mine mounted to the left side - just left of the A pillar. It partially covers the top left switch’s on the dash - but I don’t use those switches much while driving- fans, fog lights, block heater. No one outside the rig can see the screen to know what’s on it. Because it’s a Ram mount I often take it down when parked - because I want to play on the computer. I figure if a cop stops me I can show him the screen - speed, temp, etc isn’t going to get him excited. The speedometer on the rig is wildly off (often 15 mph high). The silver leaf matches the Garmin so I use it for speed. A picture is worth a 1000 words….

I put a silver leaf on my rig, and I LOVE the additional info I get from it. It does read the engine codes too. I believe Bluefire (or something like that does the same thing but with Bluetooth rather than old serial port stuff. The only error codes I have had were related to the throttle position sensor (I got it replaced), but it was very nice knowing why I got the warning light and then I knew what to do to reset it for the computer (a certain procedure of slowly completely depressing the throttle 3x).

On my 2000 Dynasty the electrical drawings show the relay is either inside the main 120v breaker box (under the outside cover) or just to it’s side (I don’t remember which). My block heater outlet is a GFI - I have had several times where it just trips. Push the button back in and it’s running again for a while. No clue what causes it to trip.

On my 2000 dynasty - I have HWH SLide. We we were having a leak on one - so we pulled them out and took them to a hydraulic shop. There was the right and left and an equalizer cylinder. There were instructions on how to get it back in sync. check and see if you have any leaks Good Luck

Do a search on this site for “See level “. Look for a thread called something like “See level gauge and propane”. It has pictures of my install plus a couple of others. If I remember correctly one was a Diplomat. You place one green sensor on each of the tanks (probably 6” for grey & black & 12” for fresh) then one set of wires goes to each monitor. I added a monitor in my wet bay - awesome for dumping and filling!

The sensors on my 2000 dynasty, were at the expected heights. So if you are cleaning your tank from the inside you will want it full-ish. My original system died, I replaced it with a Seelevel II by Garnet. Works much better! Gives accurate % and levels every 3 or 4%. So 53% 56% 60%. I also added another display in my wet bay. Second best upgrade done!

The YouTube that installed system spend a LOT on the batteries! Almost all of them go for Battle Born batteries and put in way more than I would. Most of them put in Victron equipment. Victron is a tier 1 supplier (meaning really good equipment that will last, good support &warranty UL listed, etc). If you have never heard of the brand - it’s probably Tier 3. (Cheap Chinese stuff that will last an unknown time, no real support or warranty). There are times and places for all three tiers of manufacturing. But for me my electrical equipment on my MotorHome will be tier 1. Batteries… I self built my battery from eight Lishen 272ah cells I got directly from China. It was lots cheaper than any other lithium battery. Now some less expensive lithiums are close. Battle Born are still super expensive! But they offer a 10yr warranty. I enjoyed building my battery. The only thing I would do differently is go to 24v for the battery and inverter- but that wasn’t possible with the way things happened for me. I made a blog post about my battery install. https://diysolarforum.com/threads/batrium-watchmon-install.17539/ Good Luck

Since you mentioned air conditioning… To run an Air Conditioner off of battery this is a list of needed items: First is a inverter that can handle it - My Multiplus 12/3000 can do it. (But just barely). Second, you need to reduce the startup surge. A soft start or replace a current A/C with a model that has a soft start. We replaced our rear A/C with a Rec-Pro (it has a built in soft start). Our old one wasn’t working well. Third, a massive battery pack. We have a self-built 540ah 12v lithium battery. For us I figure if the battery starts out full- we can run the A/C for an hour. (Really a little over two hours- but I leave margin in the battery). The final problem is recharging the battery. I have 1220w of solar. I never get 1000w of power in for more than a few moments- 800 is typical in good conditions- Because the panels are flat. A drained battery will take two good solar days to recharge. I also have a residential fridge and run Starlink when parked, plus computers, etc. So I only run the A/C (on battery) for an hour before bed - to cool down the bedroom. Any longer and I run the generator. With the generator I can run both A/C’s. I didn’t plan my system to run the Air Conditioner. It just kinda happened that I barely can. The only thing I did to make it happen is move the rear A/C breaker from the main breaker box to the inverter breaker box. If I was going to design the system to run the A/C here are a few things I would adjust. The inverter battery would be 24 or 48v. The amps required to run the A/C on 12v are massive! (Yes that means two voltage systems for the house power). A bigger battery would be nice and more solar. Good Luck with whatever you decide.