Jim Pratten

We’d like that space for storage  also. It’s on our project list but probably won’t get to this year. I’ll get all sorts of points from the front office when we get to take our screen room with us in the vacated space.

With stove top burners the only load, and then only when dry camping, our 45 gal tank is also a bit of overkill. A couple 20 lb tanks with switch over valve would do nicely and is the route we’ll likely go.  

Good luck with your conversion. 

We navigate with Copilot and use the Garmin Denzel to monitor roadway info it offers. When we near our arrival location, we close the Copilot and open Google Maps in satellite view. 

Ditto on Starlink but for little different reason. Heading toward Alaska in couple months and once you get to the Yukon, geostationary DISH satellites are too low on the horizon to pick up.

Currently pausing the RV Starlink plan while using our jet packs to stream. Moving to streaming service is not without growing pains and buffering delays. But heck, when we were kids, we had three channels that signed off at 10:30P. Somehow we survived. 

The defrost clip mentioned is popular item on eBay.  Search for DA61-06796A Refrigerator Clip.

It's a fairly easy install with the bonus of getting to clean out your refrigerator.

58 minutes ago, 96 EVO said:

Frank, I try to do the same!

Yeah, just cut your access hatch, then install a frame around it to reattach to the wall.

It will look good as new. 

Opening doesn't have to be this large.  Primary purpose of opening was to insert a fireplace on kitchen side of wall.  Inspection access was a bonus.

We had similar issue, slide wouldn’t come in. Go to each door switch, pull the spade connectors off the switch and connect them to a 5 amp auto fuse. If it’s a switch, you’ll find it this way.  Remember, don’t operate the slide with the door open. Forget the details but was able to open the switch, clean it and returned it to service. 

I used Wix 57196 for my 2000 Dynasty ISC fan/power steering hydraulic system.  My notes say Fram C7058 and Nelson 84101B are equivalent.

Thanks Scotty!  Great to hear the good news.  As a newbie, I have benefited immensely from the monacoers forum and very much appreciate your time and those of the team of regular contributors.  Thanks again. 

Thanks Joel for posting this.  We are all very thankful this bad day wasn’t much, much worse.

This hits home for us as we have a Roadmaster 8” lift bar to tow our Jeep JK.  Some of my thoughts:

1. Reassess how to inspect our hitch
2. Evaluate connection location of the breakaway cable on tow vehicle
3. Evaluate connection location of the safety chains on tow vehicle
4. Consider adding skid rollers to protect the hitch from road impact
5. Consider drilling additional locking pin hole in the solid 2” tow bar, shortening bar length to help reduce side loading moments
6.  

14 minutes ago, Ivan K said:

The breaker was getting hot and it stopped after tightening the wire terminals, some were not so tight.

Another good point. Shortly after we got our Dynasty, I tightened all the AC and DC power connections that were relatively easy to get to. The majority of screws tightened a quarter turn. A few took half a turn and a few were fully tight. 

Agree, could be the cap. Though most often when start/run caps fail, the motor stalls on start and trips out before running. Bad caps usually swell up and, with cylindrical caps, the ends will bulge out. 

Breakers usually have trip curves that operate quickly on high current such as a short and more slowly when the load exceeds the breaker rating. The mechanism for the slower trip is often a thermal element which can degrade over time. I’d swap breakers with one of the other units and see if the same breaker or same unit trips. That should help you isolate the problem to either the breaker or air conditioning unit. My money is on replacing the breaker. 

5 hours ago, The Hales said:

Make sure the receptacle used for the fireplace does not go to the inverter.

Good observation. The only 120 vac circuits at that location are on the inverter sub panel. We dry camp quite a lot and power management is a must. Fortunately the “decorative” mode is a pretty light load on the inverter and I’d be in trouble if we couldn’t run it while boondocking. 

The boss insisted we install a fireplace as part of our refreshing our new to us 2000 Dynasty York 34.  Happens there’s just enough unused space below our small pantry and above the slide utility chase.  I really wanted access to inspect the utility chase so it turned out a win-win.

We first cut a large access hole in the toilet room forward wall.  Measured carefully and cut another somewhat smaller hole in the kitchen wall to insert the flush mounted fireplace.  Power for the fireplace is off the kitchen outlet circuit so we’ll have to be mindful of the loads.  Trimmed the fireplace hole with black styrene angle pieces.

Turned out well.  Boss is happy and keeps the fireplace in “decorative” mode most of the time.  I’m happy to have access to inspect the slide utility chase which happened to be in great condition.

Some side notes.  1) Very impressed that both walls are 3/4" plywood; not likely to find that in most/any current production motorhomes.  2) Harvested toilet pedestal floor tiles to replace cracked kitchen tiles, but that's another story.  3) We only use the fireplace rocker power switch and not the remote.  When slide is in, no way do I want risk of heater coming on.

Bill, if you can find where the electrical heating element is inserted into the tank, you might be able to follow the wires back to the relay. Or conversely, if you can see where 120 vac circuit enters the box, suspect it goes directly to the relay. Good luck. 

Relay on our 200 is mounted to cover of small electrical junction box located lower left corner.  Photo shows cover removed and pointing to relay attached to back side of cover. 

My relay failed and I replaced it with the one below. Took a little bit of wire splicing in a tight place but not too difficult a job. Opened the failed relay and found the contact armature had melted and no longer moved the contact to the closed position.  That convinced me to try a different relay. 
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B087LTQHQD/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

1 hour ago, Tom Cherry said:

 . . . the above only “violates” one rule…..which 90% of the population does…..you feed the house without a TRANSFER SWITCH….

Don’t doubt 90% follow this practice. Recognize that, as described, this poses a serious safety risk consequence and most likely violates local law. Granted the risk probability is low and accidents are an alignment of “swiss cheese” events allowing the accident to occur.  One barrier removed from a real bad day.

29 minutes ago, Dr4Film said:

That 50-amp male receptable is exactly what I had intended to use at the coach end if I decide to go with method #2.

You meant female receptacle, like those at an rv pedestal, right?

Be mindful of the safety risks of having exposed “hot” conductors. One of my concerns would be if someone else comes along and doesn’t understand how you’ve set it up and tries to operate it.

Consider installing a transfer switch near your home breaker panel.  Something like this:

https://pdf.lowes.com/productdocuments/de658161-0a6a-4e82-8275-5e5e94f81f27/41599932.pdf?_gl=1*i1mhvi*_gcl_aw*R0NMLjE2Njk1NTYyMDYuQ2owS0NRaUFzb3ljQmhDNkFSSXNBUFBiZUx0RmtmY3hscEVDTWpkYWRhVzlIYXdlMnRwRnBRazZYMmFTNkZTblRKQWc4VEV1OHJiSzVoOGFBczhlRUFMd193Y0I.*_gcl_dc*R0NMLjE2Njk1NTYyMDYuQ2owS0NRaUFzb3ljQmhDNkFSSXNBUFBiZUx0RmtmY3hscEVDTWpkYWRhVzlIYXdlMnRwRnBRazZYMmFTNkZTblRKQWc4VEV1OHJiSzVoOGFBczhlRUFMd193Y0I.

The generator feed side of the switch would connect to a male 50A receptacle like this one:

https://www.amazon.com/Miady-Generator-SS20-50P-Generators-Weatherproof/dp/B08DFQWJWW/ref=sr_1_33?gclid=Cj0KCQiAsoycBhC6ARIsAPPbeLutxqLjzSnetx_DTfxsTLlRWOmZ2czvXVqYAmMc2gvKmPQ-Pv8WQH8aAl2kEALw_wcB&hvadid=580903079890&hvdev=t&hvlocphy=1018036&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=11827916453339765787&hvtargid=kwd-300541928046&hydadcr=3644_13538946&keywords=50+amp+rv+male+receptacle&qid=1669557119&sr=8-33

At the coach, my preference would be installing a 40 amp, 2 pole breaker off the generator wired to a new 50 amp RV receptacle.

Just finished replacing the five 2 1/4” radiator hoses in our 2000 Dynasty ISC 350.

Replaced these hoses with one each:

Gates 20401 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000CRFI0S/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Gates 24236 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000CRBQ22/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

That’s great knowing with confidence what caused the over current.  Good job and good luck with repairs. 

Another thought.

My preferred troubleshooting approach is to recreate the problem and make one “fix” at a time until problem is corrected. ***For your situation it comes with some risk.***
You’d have to plug fuses back in and bring on the systems that were running when the event started. After the source of the over current is identified and corrected, I’d start reworking all the damaged and abandoned circuits. 

A possible root cause to consider is you have a poor ground connection on a larger conductor.  A smaller conductor may have served as an alternate current path exceeding its capacity. The larger conductor would show no signs of damage in this senecio. I haven’t dug into my dash yet but my drawings show a couple ground buss bars inside the firewall. I’d look for and tighten/reconnect any suspect grounds.  

Good luck!

37 minutes ago, Dr4Film said:

There may be a way to reboot the computer that drives the instruments back there, i really don't know.

Reboot the computer, that’s what I’d try first also.  Simplest way is remove your negative cable for a couple minutes at your chassis batteries. Good luck!