SteveR
Moderator Emeritus
- Joined
- Jul 1, 2005
- Messages
- 2,811
We have been on a trip in our motorhome and our forward progress from St George, UT to Newport, OR has been full of unscheuled stops and delays due to one thing after another. Here is a short list of whay has been keeping me occupied over the past 2 weeks.
*Installed a SeeLevel tank monitoring system in my motorohome. This entailed connecting stips of sensor panels to the actual tanks (fresh water, grey tank, black tank and LP gas tank), running wire all over the place and cutting into perfectly good solid cheery panels in the hallway. All went well but took two days longer than it should due to wiring delays finding channels to run wires and finding tools that are still in boxes from our recent move.
*Cleaning the coach and loading it for the trip. This might seem an easy task but we live in an area where the daytme temps reach 100+ daily and the wind blows a very fine red dust into and onto everything.
* On our way to Salt Lake City, we heard to spine tingling and gut wrenching tones of the "Jacks Down" alarm while driving 65 mph on a crowded freeway in the middle of Utah. For the novice motorhomer jacks are hydrolic pistons with feet that are used to level the coach and provide stability when parked. Leaving them down and driving off would result in near total desctuction of the coach chassis so making sure they are up is a good thing.
After a few hours of diagnostic work in 100+ temps in a gravel Rest Area it was determined the system was hosed. This was both good and bad news. The good news was the jacks were up and would not come down....the bad news was the jacks were up and would not come done. It also meant we could not dump the air from our airbags that are part of the chassis roll control system. With no control we could not dump the air from the bags and could not level the coach which resulted in a trampoline-like effect when walking with a vehicle list to starbard of several degrees. Doors won't stay open or won't stay shut, drawrs slide out, people roll out of beds, etc.
Fortunately we fould a person who would and could look at it. Turns out it was a defective main system board. The bad news was the unit was out of warranty by a month. Further bad news was that they did not have one in stock. The argeed to make a board and overnight it to me for replacement. The good new is it was all done within a 3 day period....the bad news was were were supposed to be someplace else.
*We are getting ready to hook up the car to the motorhome to get it ready for us to leave in the morning when we notice a chunk of metal sitting in one of the tires....at 6pm. We luckily found a repair place who could fix it and did so.
* After 300 miles of hot desert driving on several stretches of freeway construction we were in good shape, motorhome was in one piece and the car was not beat up. Until we hit Boise, ID or rather a piece of Boise hit us. We recieved a large rock from some highway construction that created a quarter sized impact creater with radiating cracks. I knew I had to get if fixed fast of we would loose the windshield....which is a one piece design that weighs over 340 pounds. As luck would have it a moble repair van came out...but without the correct tools and had to go back and get them. By 10pm he finally showed up to fix the damage.
We start out tomorrow with high hopes that we will not have any further issues to deal with.
Despite all the rough sailing we are still having a great time.
You can't go into RVing with high expecations for equipment longevity. Stuff breaks all the time. If you expect perfections you will be gravely disappointed.
*Installed a SeeLevel tank monitoring system in my motorohome. This entailed connecting stips of sensor panels to the actual tanks (fresh water, grey tank, black tank and LP gas tank), running wire all over the place and cutting into perfectly good solid cheery panels in the hallway. All went well but took two days longer than it should due to wiring delays finding channels to run wires and finding tools that are still in boxes from our recent move.
*Cleaning the coach and loading it for the trip. This might seem an easy task but we live in an area where the daytme temps reach 100+ daily and the wind blows a very fine red dust into and onto everything.
* On our way to Salt Lake City, we heard to spine tingling and gut wrenching tones of the "Jacks Down" alarm while driving 65 mph on a crowded freeway in the middle of Utah. For the novice motorhomer jacks are hydrolic pistons with feet that are used to level the coach and provide stability when parked. Leaving them down and driving off would result in near total desctuction of the coach chassis so making sure they are up is a good thing.
After a few hours of diagnostic work in 100+ temps in a gravel Rest Area it was determined the system was hosed. This was both good and bad news. The good news was the jacks were up and would not come down....the bad news was the jacks were up and would not come done. It also meant we could not dump the air from our airbags that are part of the chassis roll control system. With no control we could not dump the air from the bags and could not level the coach which resulted in a trampoline-like effect when walking with a vehicle list to starbard of several degrees. Doors won't stay open or won't stay shut, drawrs slide out, people roll out of beds, etc.
Fortunately we fould a person who would and could look at it. Turns out it was a defective main system board. The bad news was the unit was out of warranty by a month. Further bad news was that they did not have one in stock. The argeed to make a board and overnight it to me for replacement. The good new is it was all done within a 3 day period....the bad news was were were supposed to be someplace else.
*We are getting ready to hook up the car to the motorhome to get it ready for us to leave in the morning when we notice a chunk of metal sitting in one of the tires....at 6pm. We luckily found a repair place who could fix it and did so.
* After 300 miles of hot desert driving on several stretches of freeway construction we were in good shape, motorhome was in one piece and the car was not beat up. Until we hit Boise, ID or rather a piece of Boise hit us. We recieved a large rock from some highway construction that created a quarter sized impact creater with radiating cracks. I knew I had to get if fixed fast of we would loose the windshield....which is a one piece design that weighs over 340 pounds. As luck would have it a moble repair van came out...but without the correct tools and had to go back and get them. By 10pm he finally showed up to fix the damage.
We start out tomorrow with high hopes that we will not have any further issues to deal with.
Despite all the rough sailing we are still having a great time.
You can't go into RVing with high expecations for equipment longevity. Stuff breaks all the time. If you expect perfections you will be gravely disappointed.