Utility Trailers & Recreational Vehicles (RV's)

Any body that's worked on a pusher RV probably knows how big of a pain in the arse they are to work on. Anyway I had a doozy of a time diagnosing a major coolant leak on a 2012 Cummins ISC with 46,000 miles today with only having a 2 foot by 2 foot hole in the floor in the bathroom to access the top of the engine. I started off by applying air pressure to the radiator with a pressure tester. The system of course would not hold pressure and air leaking very audibly somewhere on top of the engine. I removed the EGR cooler and pressure tested in a tub of water. A crack in the EGR cooler case was found doing the pressure test. I installed a new Cummins updated EGR cooler and …

Next month we'll be getting our RVs ready for weekends and weeks of camping. Now there's nothing more annoying than having a break down and wasting precious vacation time fixing what ever broke. The frustration of setting up camp and your wife telling you that there's no hot water can ruin any outing. What if you have to leave the camp site and someone else has to hook up your rig and move it, would they know how? Here are a few of my "to do" check lists for truck and trailer. Since I pull a boat trailer behind my 5th wheel those check lists are here also. Comment on any steps that I might have missed or that are pertinent to your RV set up. These files are in Mic…

Hi All,I'm new again to this camper thing so, my escape hatch vent rotted was so bad on a recent tailgate the lid blew off on the way home.So my question, my opening is 21x14 & my lid was 22x15 whey do they ask me for my rough opening measurement? I don't know that for sure all I know for sure are those two? I ordered one w those & they sent me some big honkin thing! My wife is furious w me for not knowing this stuff!:duh:Help,Dave

Flagmanruss asked if I would be nice to post this up for him...

Here is a neat link that shows all the trailer laws... http://www.towingworld.com/articles/TowingLaws.htm

About every half hour my water pump runs for two seconds and I know there are no plumbing leaks in the RV. The water pump is from 2003 and has been let run dry with the switch on accidently for two whole days. Yes, it still works but, is it possible it's letting water back flow to the freshwater side? Anyone ever see this problem?

My neighbor recently went dipping for reds on the lower Kenai It is a jet. The lower river is pretty muddy and silty . The cooling system got plugged enough to make the motor run hot and it went into limp mode. It was always peeing but it would not come out of limp mode. When he got it home he put the hose on it and flushed it out . Then he took it to a local shop because he was worried something else was wrong. Typical new virus wait to get it in. Gets it back couple days late and the bill was 1140$ $54 for masks and gloves etc and 5 hours labor I believe. No parts one very small zip tie but they didn’t charge him for that. Never put it in the water and tested n…

A week ago we took a 200 mile trip to a camp ground in Cumbria, it's 8 mile from the English/ Scottish border, mostly motorway which is freeway to you guys, looked at Gretna Green last week which is in Scotland, do a search.... marriage rules changed in England but not in Scotland hence people ran away to Gretna. Took a look at lake Windemere where Donald Campbell died in Bluebird. Today we went to Hadrians wall which was built in the 1st century by the Romans as their furthest northern frontier stretching from Carlisle on the western coast to near Lindesfarne on the east coast, 80 Roman miles or 73 modern miles long, 15 feet high with forts and milehouses every mile fo…

I'm planning to upgrade the winch on my trailer, which will also entail putting a full size deep cycle battery onboard. I'm failing at finding high amperage DC battery chargers, just the 800mA units for breakaway batteries. If I draw down this battery winching a dead pile on flat tires 100' and up onto the trailer, I don't want it to take a month to get the battery back up to full power. Is there something in between the $300-500+ full RV inverter systems that have a ton of features I don't need (like shore power charging, built in inverters, etc) and the $8 throwaway 800mA and less "maintainer" type changers? --- Update to the previous post... Figures, I …

https://youtu.be/p87sZMeiC2U

Arrgh...On my last outing I notice water dripping down on the rear corner of the RV. It was leak from up inside near the city water connector. Looking at the plumbing there is a piece of vinyl tubing clamped to the city water fitting and the PEX elbow. So loosen up the clamps to find both are damaged so I might as well replace the tubing too. Gave a firm tug on the city water side and POP! It came off but it broke the PEX elbow. I called the local lumber yard and they have no way of cutting the PEX clamp band. Great! So I hunted around the property to find the Dremel tool I found a small grinding wheel started slowly grinding the band. Well eventually the band got hot an…

I've been working down in Lucile, ID on an RV. The RV is a 1979 South Wind with a Chevy 454 CID. This RV had been parked for over 13 years up Race Creek Road. Then Jim bought the RV for $700 dollars. Quick re-cap I got busy fixing the engine enough to drive it from Race Creek to Riggins, filled with fuel, and drove out to Lucile. Now, this winter I started working on it again but now doing water damage repair. I brought a friend in Mark Hall to help out. So now the RV has water leaks from both the roof and from around the awning. After cutting into the wall from the inside and inspecting everything we opened up quite a bit trying to get to solid wood and steel frame. Spen…

My Dometic refrigerator runs on either 120V or propane. What would be the procedure to add 12 volt? I assume it would be easiest to use a converter to run off batteries. How would I switch over to 120v if I plug it into a converter? Or would I simply run off batteries through the inverter when hooked up to shore power? How big of a converter should I consider? Seems like a good feature to have 12 volt operation while driving.

Are people this blind can see the flashing lights and warnings?

I'm getting rid of my flatbed and installing my winch and tool box on my brother in laws brand new trailer. This new trailer has a break away battery system for the brakes and according to the description, charges through the trailer plug. I had the winch battery setup to charge through the plug on my old trailer but it was the only battery. Can I just tap into the new trailer harness and run a charge wire to the winch battery so both get charged? I have a feeling it won't be that simple, but that's why I'm here. I'll verify the break away is charged by the tow vehicle as I know not all do. Would it perhaps just be easier to get a small solar charger for the winch b…

We have an '89 jayco with a 5 gal. Hot water heater. The pilot light won't stay on after lighting, holding the button a couple minutes. It will just go out. I replaced the pilot light burner and thermocouple a year ago when the problem started and haven't had any luck with it. Didn't camp much last year so didnt worry about it (thanks covid). But now we have a couple trips planned and would like it to work. The electric part of the heater works but I prefer gas as it recovers faster.

Neighbor down the road from me hooked me up with a gent in New Meadows, ID that sells salvaged firewood from logging operations. The load above is all spruce and it sold for $75 a cord and there is roughly 2 cords on the trailer. Nice. I'm planning on doing it again!

Has anyone else had trouble with floor covering in TT cracking in cold weather. Know how to help prevent this short of maintaining warmer temps in TT

Need to replace my car hauler's lights. Anyone know of a good deal on some led lights? So far cheapest I found are from easternmarine. Trailer is just an 18' open deck car hauler http://www.easternmarine.com/optronics-led-trailer-light-kit-tll-9rk

Since my RV has a TV stand build in and I just happen to have a older 13" TV I could toss in the RV. Why not I picked up a little RCA Analog to Digital Converter for the TV on my last trip and figure I'd give it a shot. Camped out in Emmett, ID I cranked up the antenna and flipped on the booster (Winegard). Hooked up the RCA D to A converter and fired up the TV. Wow! Works awesome. :woot:I found that if you flip over to menu and show the signal strength you can tune your antenna for greatest signal strength. Then go back through your channel search again and pickup any missing channels. Not bad for $50 bucks at WalMart and being in Emmett, ID and getting 8 channel…