Category: RV Repairs

These are posts that have to do with fixing the trailer(s)

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On the road again, sort of.

Before I unwind my tale – let me mention D and W campground outside Champaign Illinois.  They are just off I-57 and Marketplace.  They are a family owned and operated campground.  It has a nice spring fed lake and lots of trees.  The grounds are well maintained including the roads.  It is a great place to stay overnight or for months.

We are back on the road, sort of.  We spent several months near our home base – working on landscaping, selling stuff from the house, giving away more and lots of other chores.  We plan to sell the house next year, so there is so much downsizing to do.  We sold our electric bikes and bought a new pair we liked better.  Then there was the sump drainpipe that needed expensive repair work and the new computer we hope will extend the life of the very old laptop I type these blogs on.  We are both photographers and edit pictures and videos.

We also replaced the shade motors on the windshield sun and night shades.  The night shade started acting wonky, stopping in the wrong place, refusing to reprogram. I found the motors on Amazon.  When I went to replace them, I found two things.  There is a brown wire that is supposed to be connected ignition so the night shade can’t be lowered too far while driving.  It was connected only to thin air.  No ignition wire to be found nearby.  The other thing I found; as I was untangling the cables – one spade connector on the night shade (the one with the problem) just fell off as it wasn’t crimped well.  So, both motors were replaced and went into storage as they might just be ok.

We traveled north to Wisconsin to spend a week with family – then will head back to home base for a week for one last medical test before we head out west.

Of course, every trip has its problems.  When we left the campground that we had been at for a couple of months, everything worked fine.  The slide even worked several times when we were there (we pull in the main slide whenever we have storm winds forecasted in the 60 mph range).

We pull into our Wisconsin park and neither the jacks nor the main hydraulic slide would work.  Now we had problems previously with the HWH hydraulic system and I ended up replacing both of the solenoids mounted on the pump system.  And the repair seemed to work.  It did work for a short trip and several uses while parked.

But when we arrived, the leveling panel was dark and nothing, even the emergency push buttons wouldn’t work.  Big Sigh…..  When we pushed the extend button for the main slide, it moved out just a little and that was it.  Basically – the hydraulic controller released the pressure holding the slide cylinder in and it moved on its own.  I jumped power directly to the hydraulic motor and the slide extended.  I think we were just lucky on that.

After looking through what HWH hydraulic diagrams I had, I went looking for a 5-amp fuse – and found one inside the dash.  Blown.  Wonderful place Tiffin.  When I replaced it, the leveling control panel powered up.  That panel talks to a controller (included in the front left storage bay) via a CAN bus and that controller talks to the hydraulic valve controller mounted with the pump.

There are two solenoids at the pump.  The MASTER solenoid provides power to the valve control body mounted on top of the pump AND provides power to the second solenoid.  The MASTER solenoid is turned on any time Ignition is on.  This along with the controller and the dash panel let you know if the jacks are in Travel Mode – or not, whenever you are driving.  However, that means that the MASTER solenoid must be a Continuous Duty solenoid – one that can stay energized for long periods of time.  If you just to go Amazon and order a 12V solenoid it likely is an intermittent version – like what you might use for a

intermittent solenoid used continuously: burnt wires.
intermittent solenoid used continuously: burnt wires.

starter.  I had mistakenly replaced my MASTER with just such a solenoid, and it did not survive the 7-hour trip between campgrounds.  I had a spare intermittent solenoid that I installed temporarily, and everything worked.  And I ordered a new, Continuous Duty solenoid that will be installed before our return trip.

Great – that is solved or will be once the correct solenoid arrives from Amazon.  Moving on – before we left home base, we purchased a new TPMS system.  The RVIBrake system got to be too big a hassle.  We bought a TST 507 with 10 sensors.  I went to program the sensors into the display – and they wouldn’t load in.  I tried multiple times.  I replaced a couple of sensor batteries just in case.  I watched four different Youtube videos on how to program these things and read two different instruction manuals on the process.  I was doing everything just exactly how it was shown.  Hold the sensor next to the bottom left side of the display, hit the GO button……  Nope, nadda, zilch…. So, I watched again, and again and realized that they often hit the go button first, then as the sensor got near the display, pop, the serial number was read.  When I tried mine, the serial number read – TWO inches away from the display.  Being too close, the signal must have been too hot to read properly.  I went on to load all 10 sensors and install them on the RV and pickup truck.

The TPMS worked on the way up to Wisconsin but a couple were a little flakey and as I suspected, the batteries weren’t new.  As I was replacing the batteries in the sensors, I noticed oil on the left rear wheel rim of the RV.  The axle seal was leaking…..  More videos.  With the F53, the entire wheel/brake disk/hub assembly freewheels on bearings on the end of the transaxle body.  A half shaft slides through the hub, into the transaxle, mating with a spline into the planetary gears and bolts to the outside of the hub.  Transaxle oil floods that space and is sealed in – with a paper gasket where the half-shaft bolts to the hub. Apparently leaks there is a thing with F53 transaxles.  The only socket wrench I had with me was an 8 inch 3/8ths drive. I put that on – and what were supposed to be 180 lb-ft tightened nuts moved with only moderate force.  Also, apparently insufficiently torqued axle flange bolts is also a thing with F53 transaxles.  There are Youtube videos showing people finding paper seals blown out, falling apart etc.  Mine were in place, so I bought a breaker bar and tightened all the nuts.  I cleaned up all the oil, so I could tell if it leaks again – added some oil to the transaxle (was only a little low).  Then I checked the other side too – loose but not leaking.

We are headed back to home base in less than a week – I’ll keep an eye on it and if it leaks, I’ll have to replace the seal.

A week at home base, then head west young man (and woman).

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Updates in the sun, mostly….

We are parking in Tucson till the end of the month – then another nearly two weeks at another park in Tucson before we begin the trip home.  We’ve enjoyed this park (Rincon RV East).  We have spent time in the lapidary and the wood shop here working on a project (future reveal).  We’ve visited both Saguaro parks, zoo, aircraft museum and many more.  We’ve even done a bit of prospecting and metal detecting.  Just before we left Rincon East park, I also replaced the vinyl on the 32SA entrance door.  This is a common problem.  Partly poor glue, partly vinyl that shinks in the sun.  It is about a two hour job but was successful.

Having made several trips to the Rock shows in Tucson, Debbie got the idea to create new sconce lights for the living room area (we never liked the lights that the RV came with, nor the ones we replaced those with.

working on backlights  

Rover sconce lights shade valance couch

The pictures here are those lights in progress.  The stones are red and green agates and me building an LED backlight.  This last picture is the final installation along with our new shade picture.

I’ve also done a bit of refrigerator repair.  We have a residential refrig.  Last week we discovered a skating pond in the bottom of the freezer.  It was coming from the ice maker which was, strangely, making hollow ice cubes.  None of this made any sense.  I defrosted it and discovered the tube that dumps water into the ice cube tray was frozen solid.  Only the tube was just an extension and the part it connected to had a gap on top, so water ran down behind the plastic back of the freezer.  I cleaned it all up, put it back together – and made sure it was making the first batch of cubes fine.

Two days later – another ice-skating pond with everything in the bottom of the freezer frozen in place.  I turned it off – took a long look at the freezer and thought about it for a day.

So, I grabbed the step ladder and cleaned the freezer out, putting it all into a freezer bag and turned the refrigerator all the way down so I could work on it.  I removed the ice maker and found the fill tube frozen again.  There were also vents down below the ice maker that had ice coming out of the bottom of them.  That meant I had to pull the entire back panel out of the freezer.  8 screws behind little plastic covers held it in.  It was clear from minor damage to these plastic clips someone had previously taken this apart – and it wasn’t me.

Behind this panel was a fan and the evaporator coil that cooled the freezer (and probably the fridge too).  On the left side, under the ice maker fill tube was a waterfall of ice.  The fill tube turned out to be a plastic tube with the top cut open, then another flexible tube pushed over it. Thus, if the attached tube froze, water would spill out of the top of the first tube and run down onto the evaporator.partially melted ice dam

But why?  I could defrost all the ice, but I couldn’t put it all together unless I could figure out why.  Here is my thinking:  A few times in the past, the freezer door got left slightly open, the last time was just a couple of days before we noticed the first frozen puddle.  Also – the vents below the ice maker were a bit misshapen. They had been a bit melted; more open at the top than the other three sides.  Between that and the ice covering the bottom of those vents caused a higher velocity air flow up right were the fill tube was, freezing it.  It also directed air away from bottom of the ice maker – meaning it didn’t freeze the cubes all the way before it dumped.

At least that was all I could figure.  I used my heat gun to soften up the vents and straightened them out and went to put it all together.

bracket that holds ice maker fill tube with popped screwI had removed the extension tube from the fill tube and I pushed it back on – and pop!  The fill tube pushed backward out of the refrigerator.  Now if this was at home – I’d just slide the refrigerator out and fix it.  This is an RV and the refrigerator is mounted 20 inches off the floor.  I went outside to look up in the small gap between he outside wall and refrigerator.  There is no way to get my head in there, so I shine a bright flashlight up there and take my phone at high zoom and found this.

Sigh…..  A discussion ensued.  Deb suggested hemostats, which worked.  I reached through the extension and grabbed a hold of the fill tube to hold it while I pushed the extension on.  Then I added silicon around the tube to hold it in place.

It is a couple of days later I write this and so far, all is well.

Of course, it never ends.  I saw a quote the other day on Facebook:  “The only thing that always works on an RV is the owner.”  For sure.  When we raised the jacks, water poured out of the bottom of the right water bay.  Looking around – I figured out the puddle was on top of the grey tank… what?  I got my inspection camera out and examined the top of the tank and determined the leak was coming in from above, right where the two sink drains came down.  I went upstairs and opened the inspection board in front of the toilet and searched and felt around – as far as I could see the drains were dry.  A lot of feeling around and I realized there was a bit of water sitting on top of some foam, which came from a fresh water line that was hardly even wet but hard water stains on it – which went up to the back of the toilet where I found a clamp that wasn’t quite clamping.  At the time, only a tiny weep of water was coming out so I presume some other factor caused it to leak more at other times.  I tightened the clamps and have rechecked it over 24 hours and it’s still dry.

Yesterday we awoke to over three inches of snow.  Yes, in Tucson.  We drove through Saguaro East and took a zillion pictures.  The snow was all gone by noon.