Coast Resorts Open Roads Forum: How many of us are there? Owners of Dodge based RV's?

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Topic: How many of us are there? Owners of Dodge based RV's?

Posted By: Leeann on 04/18/10 06:29pm

Genny - check the wiring in the control box. Ours would do that intermittently. There was a ground wire on the wiring diagram that didn't exist in our box.

Coolant - oh, of course. But if you have a radiator shop nearby, it's not a horrible fix.

Oil - yeah, there is that...sorry...

Furnace - is there an easy way to test it, like jumping something on the board?

'73 Concord 20' Class A w/Dodge 440 - see profile for photo

Posted By: oldtrucker63 on 04/19/10 01:24am

The oil leak could be a b%tch, The Furnace just check the wires between the furnace and the temp setting box a lose wire would be my guess, Easy fix, Don't give up man there is light down in that tool box somewhere.

Without Trucks,....America Stop's

Posted By: eyeteeth on 04/19/10 06:14am

The Furnace blower comes on just fine, but that's it. It's something inside...

Posted By: TreeSeeker on 04/19/10 10:07am

If you Google "RV furnace troubleshooting" you will find a number of good sites. Here is one: Troubleshooting the
RV DSI Furnace

Posted By: WVTravco on 04/20/10 07:52pm

Should I change all the electric wires just to be safe? If so what should I use?

Me(37), Hubby(36), Little Man(11), Princess(5), Boxer(6)
1972 Travco 270-Fezzik
TVs-2004 4Runner, 2002 Ford F-350 Super Duty Diesel
2006 Bass Tracker 175
Coleman Sundome 6 tent
"More is not enough, too much is just right"

Posted By: Leeann on 04/20/10 08:05pm

I'd check them. If they show any signs of cracking/burning/corrosion, then I'd replace them.

It depends on the wire, but we used all marine-grade wire when we replaced ours. Same environment, so why not? Besides, the boat store was a LOT closer than the RV store...and cheaper. We replaced like with like, except when the bf decided the wire was too small for the load.

We did add ground wires everywhere. Literally. If there was a ground wire present, it was inadequate. Most of the time, there wasn't one (we had headlights that wouldn't work, wipers that wouldn't work, etc - all because of weak grounds). Redundancy is good.

Posted By: eyeteeth on 04/20/10 08:07pm

WVTravco wrote:

Should I change all the electric wires just to be safe? If so what should I use?

Sounds like one heck of an undertaking. Not sure how you'd pull new wires... I got nothng' but a request for information and description if you go for it.

I haven't gotten into the furnace yet. But I did pressre test the radiator last night. Autozone 'claims' to have a replacement for $180... I'll let you know more after it arrives. I figure 30+ years old, it's already sprouted one one leak, a second is probably right behind, no sense simply fixing it. I'm sure it will leak somewhere else soon anyway.

General consensus is it's a starter problem on the genny. It sat in a trailer for a year, not used... anyone here cleaned/repaired a starter or has everyone just taken 'em somewhere?

Posted By: Leeann on 04/20/10 08:25pm

We've never had to touch our starter, so I dunno. What model genny do you have, again? It was an Onan, right? I might have or be able to find the service manual, so let me know.

Posted By: eyeteeth on 04/20/10 09:18pm

It's an Onan 4000 Emerald...

[image]

Posted By: DeadeyeLefty on 04/20/10 09:41pm

Quote:

Should I change all the electric wires just to be safe? If so what should I use?

If I may, I'd like to chime in on the marine wire topic....

First, I'm with Leann: marine is the way to go for anyone who is restoring an old rig. SAE wire is for getting the price down - otherwise it doesn't belong in an old and (unfortunately) leaky/humid RV.
JMHO of course.

Marine wire is usually sized (guaged) as "AWG" rather than "SAE". The difference is in the amount of wire present for the guage - a 16AWG wire is 'bigger' in cross-section than a 16 SAE wire. The latter is what rigs are wired with. That will give you a bit of a safety margin when you are figuring out what guage you need to use.

The other great improvement of marine wire is that it is tinned along its entire length. That gets rid of the 'creeping black death' that we've all seen after stripping the insulation off our existing wiring.

Personally, I would go cheaper on the A/V equipment, or upholstery, or furnishings before I would try to save money on the wiring because that other stuff is easy to replace down the road.. Besides, a cheap-ass barrel chair won't start a fire if it shorts out...

My '77 had 2X2 framing with 1" holes drilled through it (I know!!!) for wire runs, so it was pretty easy to pull new wire through using the old ones as a fish. If I were in your shoes, I'd probably pull down the ceiling panels and run conduit to make life a little easier, but I don't know your rig so I won't be presumptuous.

The first step in figuring out what wire size to use is to do a load analysis. I drew up a floor plan and plotted out where my components would go and used that to figure out how long my wire runs would be (roughly) and more importantly how much current the individual components would draw.

This isn't spam (I have no connection to it) but bluesea.com has a lot of great resources, including charts for wire sizing based on length of run(always round-trip length) vs. current draw. The fact that it's meant for marine equipment just gives RVers an extra bit of redundancy - personally I like redundancy when the alternative is hitch hiking until I can get a tow !

I've built a few boats to ABYC specs ('building code' for boats) and I'm be happy to post their recommendations if you can come up with a length and amperage.

Project Glacier trailer build.

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