BitsPerSecond wrote:

You guys are making good progress. My repair manual came the other day, so I can start planning what I need/want to do with the engine. I decided to plug in the electrical and try running the AC to dry out the inside of the coach (and not fall over from heatstroke) and I discovered something odd. The end of cord for the electrical service has been replaced (not very well), not only that but its been swapped to your typical 120V Three prong plug like you use in the house/can be plugged into an extension cord. Am I correct in assuming that this is NOT normal for an RV? I was under the assumption they used some weird plug. Also not sure if it is 30A or 50A.

BitsPerSecond wrote:

Thanks Stingray, thats what I needed to know. Ill replace the cable eventually. For now Im going to cut off the splice and put a new connector on the end of what appers to be the original cord. Its just too hot to do anything without ac.

StingrayL82 wrote:

I edited my post early this morning, but apparently not everything took....

I think I know why my refrigerator fuse connection started melting. This happened, when I was plugged into shore power, using an old 10/3 extension cord. The cord had the ground pin knocked out of it years ago, and I didn't give it a second thought, when I plugged in. I'm now thinking that the cord was producing reverse polarity to the rig.

The reason I say this is because, when I was underneath working on the Dana 70, I kept getting this slightly uncomfortable tingle, every time I touched the chassis. It felt like a TENS unit on low power. At first I didn't think anything of it, and wrote it off as my imagination, because it was the sensitive part of my forearm that was touching it.

But then I decided to see if I still got the tingle, when I was unplugged from shore power, and I did not. Needless to say, the 10/3 cord was disconnected and I pulled out my RV 30-amp extension cord. No more tingling, when I touch the chassis, so the old 10/3 cord WAS the culprit.

It wasn't until I started reading up on reverse polarity, that the thought of the 10/3 cord not having it's ground pin was possibly the cause of the refrigerator wire melting. What's interesting is that the 15-amp fuse did NOT blow. It had some condensation in it and a slight brown tinge, but it was intact.

Any thoughts?

Griff in Fairbanks wrote:


10/3 is actually a 240VAC cord ... Two legs are hot and the third is neutral, not ground. Usually, there's a fourth ground wire. Some people tie the neutral and ground together and put a 120VAC plug on it ... or find other ways of screwing it up, such as using a 10/2 cord on 240VAC connection.

StingrayL82 wrote:

This is the cord I bought from Home Depot. It most definitely is 120VAC.Yellow Jacket 10/3 Extension Cord.

TreeSeeker wrote:

You need one of these adapters to plug in your 240 volt RV cord to a 110vac outlet. Ideally, the outlet should be on a 20amp circuit.

Griff in Fairbanks wrote:

Okay. Something is definitely screwed up. Around forty years ago, three prong 240VAC plugs and outlets were common, with neutral and ground tied together ... or just neutral with no ground. (The latter is why people sometimes got shocks from old dryers and ranges.)

In all cases, missing ground prong is always a serious problem.

Treeseeker is right, you need a manufactured adapter. Homebrews are often screwed up.

If you have a manufactured adapter, and the outlet you're plugging into is wired correctly, then the problem is inside your motorhome.