Replacing Lighting

[dereeves]

I inherited this 2000 Monaco Diplomat at the end of Jan 2024. When my father passed he was living in Lakeside, OR since like 1989. He had just bought this class a last year to live in and didn't really get to do anything with it as he was in and out of the hospital since he had bought it. If you don't know, which i didn't know until i spent 3 weeks there, Lakeside rains a lot. We had like three non rain days with sun, and 1 non rain day with clouds...out of 3 weeks. Everything up there including houses, has green algae, moss and mold/mildew growing on it, was nasty, and the motorhome was no exception. Anyways, the reason i am typing this...

I am in the process of replacing and sealing all the clearance lights as like 4 of them worked was all. The front ones have a 1" hole in the fiberglass and wired through there with the coach insulation right there. The back ones have the same 1" hole on the cap, then like 3"s in there is another hole but smaller, like 5/8" drilled through that. The space between the 2 holes you can see the sunlight as it has a roof vent on top of back for the engine. Why would Monaco run this power feeds through that portion of the coach versus along the bottom and coming up in that vent or even a hole inside but towards the bottom where interior leakage wouldn't ever happen? Some of the things i have seen since getting this vehicle seems like Monaco wasn't concerned with leakage into the coach. Doesn't make any sense to me. Oh and it has taken me like 30-45 minutes for each back light to get the old one off and the 1/4" sealant off and exposing the wires long enough to attach the new lights. I was complaining as the front ones were taking like 15 minutes each, but i stopped that complaining after the first and second back ones. 

Edited March 19 by dereeves

[vito.a]

I replaced and resealed our clearance lights. The trick is to use a pair of hemostats to hold the original wires while you cut and splice the new lights on.  

Good luck!

[dereeves]

I have had to add wire to only 1 so far, all the ground wires are the short ones and i bought the new lights which are grounded through the body mount which doesn't work with a fiberglass shell, so i am having to run them into the back of each light and putting a screw tab (don't know the name of them) like ring on them and secure them with new stainless screws. Sometimes i don't put 2+2 together correctly, otherwise i would have looked before i ordered new ones. I drove trucks for several years so i get stuck on the steel body aspect of big vehicles and did i mention i don't do 2+2 too good most times...