Kirk W

You can get the service manual in .pdf format from Bryant RV, service documents website.

The 3a fuse for the 12V side would prevent any operation, but the 5A, 120V fuse would prevent it cooling on electricity but not prevent propane.

I now have the same issue with my fridge. We had a bad storm and it was plugged in 120v and had a few power surges. Power finnaly went out and stayed out for 3 days. Now the fridge does not work at all on AC or LP ... The heating element seems to get hot on the back of the fridge .... but will not cool at all.

First of all, welcome to the Escapees forums. We will do our best to help you here. If you do not get many replies, you may want to post this again as a new topic, since this thread is now 10+ months old and so it may not draw much interest.

While the power problems might be the issue, with refrigerators there are other possible problems. When you were without shore power for three days, did the refrigerator continue to cool using propane for power? And have you tried shifting to propane to see if it will cool then? The control circuitry of an RV refrigerator is powered by 12V-dc from the battery & converter system but the heat must be supplied either propane or 120V shore power. Since you indicate that the heater area is getting hot, that would seem to indicate that the 120V fuse on the main circuit board is not open(blown) but if I were you I would use a meter to verify that the heater is receiving 120V, and if you don't have a meter, just for fun look at the main circuit board and check the two fuses located there. In most cases there will be a 3a fuse for the 12V-dc and a 5a fuse for the 120V-ac to the heater. I would remove both 120V and 12V power before fooling with those fuses and they may be open even if they look to be good. An ohm meter is the only certain way to determine if they are good or bad. If there are any indications on the refrigerator's control panel, that would show that there is 12V available and that the fuse for 12V is good. There is no easy way to be sure of the 120V (5a) fuse.

Let us know a bit more about this and we may be able to help you. If you also share the make and model of the refrigerator, there are service manuals available for most of them via the internet.

Is this market timing? Or is it risk adjustment? Or is it foolishness? Who knows?

I don't think that I'd base my investment choices on forum discussions. Many posts on a subject doesn't make me an expert. Do your research looking at the professional opinions and choose.carefully. Remember that on the forums we are all able to claim to be anything we wish to with no documentation or proof.

Thanks again everyone for all the good things to know about large breeds and restrictive breeds. Also, your pet peeves and knowledge that we will be taking LOTS of walks.

We have always had smaller sized dogs since moving to the city and then into an RV, but one of our most loved dogs was the malamute that we had when living on an acreage in WY. I guess we just love dogs in general.

The main issue as long as you are a responsible owner who controls and picks up after his pet is that many commercial RV parks do have restrictions on some breeds that at times might include yours and the more common issue is the size restriction. It isn't all parks so it can be done but you may want to make the park aware of your pet just to be sure that they do not object.

Most RV parks do welcome pets that are leashed, quiet, and that have good behavior. We were fulltime with first a mini schnauzer and then with a 40# corgi mix. It has never been a serious problem and we have experienced very few issues with pets of other RV folks. Our pet peeve is the owners who do not pick up after their pets.

Why when I go to the job board to find out what work there is for me, it says I"m not authorize to view this report. I AM a member.

Are you a member of Escapees or just of the forums? If a member of Escapees, have you registered on the site?

Those of us who participate in any of the forms of work-camping can do a lot to make this new service get more useful quickly by sharing this information with the agencies which we have worked for/with. Many potential employers or volunteer coordinators are looking for better ways to recruit good help and free services which reach good people are not all that available. Lets all help to promote this by sending a link to it to those we believe to be good places to work-camp!

So I gather that no resolution is yet available?

Are you sure that your problem is that valve? In most RVs the fresh water pump also acts as a check valve to prevent the city water from back-flowing through it to the tank. If the pump needs rebuilt it can cause the same problem. A quick way to test that is to turn on the pump with water in the tank and city water off or disconnected. If the pump then runs every few minutes or more it means that pressure/water is leaking back through the pump & into the tank.

Is this what you have?

 

Four Positions, Four Functions

1. City – Pressure feed fixtures from 3/4" hose connection on backflow preventer.
2. Normal – Pump from the on-board tank to the fixtures using on-board pump.
3. Tank – Pressure fill the tank from 3/4" hose connection at backflow preventer. 100 gallons
   in 7 minutes.
4. Sanitize/Winterize – Draw in sanitizers and winterizing fluids from a bucket utilizing the
   on-board pump.

I highly recommend a transmission cooler too, for anyone towing with an automatic.

Assuming that the vehicle's tow package didn't include a transmission cooler, as some do.

I hope you are keeping your eye on your transmission fluid. This is the weakest area for failure after a long haul. Personally, I think that your choice of vehicles is questionable and I would strongly suggest that you entertain the idea of a pick-up truck.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion. I learned many years ago to monitor all fluids in vehicles on a frequent basis and so continue to do this. I have also used an oil analysis service for both engine and transmission for most of my RVing experience. If it will make you feel better, the transmission was just serviced 3 days ago & early by service mileage charts, as a prep to our coming month of travel. Fluid was at normal level and only slightly discolored, as reported by the servicing dealer and Blackstone Labs just give the sample a positive analysis report.

Edit: I should have mentioned that the manual calls for transmission service every 36,000 miles. It has been serviced at 30K since I purchased it.

Is that typical for you, Kirk? Or is it atypical for your rig that you ascribe to an unusual situation, ie. did you fight a strong headwind, tow at high speed, etc.? Could it be that your V-6 SUV is underpowered for your trailer's frontal area? My low profile Aliner doesn't hardly affect my 6.4l diesel's

As stated, that was for the total trip from Texas to Goshen, IN and then to Hot Springs, SD then to Cheyenne, WY and then back to Texas by way of Kansas, from April 29 through September 28, 2014. There was wind on occasion but nothing notable and clearly not for the entire summer. We did drive up some hills but we also came back down and we were never towing in major mountains. I tow at speeds of 55 to 65 mph depending upon conditions, probably averaging 60 mph over all when out on the highways.

There is a huge difference in towing a popup with very little frontal area and most of that below the tow vehicle's roof line and towing a travel trailer of full size, even if there is no difference in weight. We have some friends who tow a travel trailer that weighs about 1400# more than ours with the same vehicle except that theirs has a V-8 and they actually get about 4 mpg less than we do when not towing and they get about 2 mpg more than we do when towing. A larger engine is less effected by the added weight & wind drag than a smaller one, but you must buy the fuel to feed it even when you don't need the extra power.

Our tow vehicle is rated to tow up to 5000# and our trailer has a GVWR of 3600#. I have considered trading for a stronger tow vehicle and at some point we likely will do so, but you must remember that most tow vehicles spend no more then 20% of their time actually towing something and many are far less than that. Last year we drove our tow vehicle a total of 18,000 miles and of that somewhat less than 4000 miles was towing. It might be a good decision to get a stouter tow vehicle if it was used only to tow, but since we own only one vehicle it must be balanced between performance when towing and performance when not. I find our current tow vehicle to be a pretty reasonable choice for our use.

Last summer we towed our 20' travel trailer, weighing only 3600# for more than 6K miles with our V-6 SUV and we got an over all average of 11.8 mpg. Most of that was in fairly level country.

 

How do I switch my domicile for this purpose only?

 

I have a concern with what you seem to be saying here........ You can't change your domicile for education without changing it for everything. As several of those articles point out, you may only have one legal domicile for any/all purposes. If you want to educate your family under Texas laws, you need to move your domicile here with is what the booklet How to Become a Real Texan explains. But you must move all of your domicile and legal address to Texas in order to do this.

On the education side of things, I suggest that you drop a private message to Kinsa and discuss the TX education issue with here and home schooling here as she does it and also spent a year on the road doing so. Better to get advice about Texas from Texans who have done what you are looking into.

If you do not have any home address, you will then need some address somewhere in order to register and insure vehicles and to hold a driving license, along with a number of other issues. You will also need some way to get mail and to pay your taxes and a host of other things. You must have an address in order to have health care insurance and any other type of insurance as well. Insurance premiums are based upon where your home, or domicile is. I suggest that you read this article from Escapee's magazine about choosing one as a good place to start. I also suggest that you download a copy of How To Become A Real Texan from the Escapees website. In addition, there are currently two threads active on the forums which address some related questions. One is on Driver's License & Registration and the other is about Question of Domicile and I believe that you may find them all to be helpful.

After that feel free to come back and post any questions that you still have.

. What makes you think that an engineer is needed in a trailer factory. If the chassis is built elsewhere it should be engineered to do the job.

Engineers are usually who does structural designs. I don't know that they still have any but I met an engineer from Newmar RV at the Dallas RV show and I have also met one from Tiffin. Both were more than 10 years ago but in both cases they at least claimed to be engineers. Even if you buy a chassis there is still a lot more to design before you put it on the chassis. If there are no engineers in those RV companies, who does do the structural design?

I researched for fulltime for a year and was lead to believer Open Range, New Horizon and WaMu at the time were the best (2010-2011). WaMu didn't make over 38 ft and we knew we wanted 42'.

You have brought up a manufacturer that I am not at all familiar with? I did a Google search and found nothing so thought that perhaps you might share a link to their website if they have one...

Okay, you've been RV'ing for a long time and you're educated as to the quality vs. price argument. Did you buy a high end RV the last time you made a purchase? The time before? Like most of us, you probably bought the best you could within the constraints of your budget.

A valid question. Our first RV was a very mature pop-up that we bought from a good friend for $250 back in 1972. I would say that for the market it was in, it was a pretty good quality product, but it had also been well tested when we got it when it was about 10 years old or more and we were at least the third owners. At the time I knew almost nothing about RVs and had always been a tent camper. Of course, that RV was little more than a tent with wheels and storage. It had no appliances, tanks, plumbing or anything else other than a table, seats and one double bed. But it was a step up from the tent. We only kept it for 2 seasons and then bought a new pop-up. This time we knew a little bit, but not nearly as much as I probably thought that I did.

Over the years since we have never had a really bad RV, but probably in most cases more by luck that knowledge. Fairly early in our RV experience I became friends with an RV tech and he taught me a great deal. I don't know that I really did as much research as I should have until we went shopping for our motorhome that we used for a fulltime home. With that one I had learned a great deal, did a lot of research and spent more than two years shopping and studying various RVs in different price ranges. That and our present RV were the only two that I consider I got more based upon knowledge of RVs and less on dumb luck.

I do not equate price with quality as there are different levels of quality in most ever price range. I do believe that with good research and education you can choose the best quality product for the budget that you have. We did learn enough to know that the very lowest price group of RVs were probably not up to the demands of constant use for many years and so we adjusted our budget to reflect that, but our budget was limited enough that we could not just buy whatever we felt was the best quality. One of the reasons that I support the RV Consumer Group is the fact that they do their best to group RVs into price/market groups and so to compare and rate similar RVs against each other, rather than one ranking for all. You simply can't compare an entry level RV to the highest priced luxury RV. There is a legitimate market for the vacation use RV even though it may not be capable of permanent use as a fulltime home. The RV which we own today would not serve well in fulltime use, but we didn't pay enough for it to have any expectation of it. We did get a high quality RV if you compare it to the market group in which it falls and I expect that it will fulfill our expectations for our present lifestyle.

 

Most folks buying an RV are probably more concerned with the wallpaper, is the microwave a convection, what size television, shades or blinds, can I get a king size bed, how many will it sleep, etc. etc. etc.

I very much agree with you, but do not consider that to be the wisest approach. Do you shop for a car with the knowledge that you won't get the luxury of a Cadillac when you buy the cheapest Chevy? People usually learn to shop cars based upon more than just how they look, yet spend several times as much to buy an RV based mostly upon price and appearance. It seems to me that it would make a lot of sense to spend more effort in learning how to find a quality RV than for a typical automobile? The information is available, but you must dig to find it.

...Very few RV manufacturers have engineers on staff...Until about 2006 Monaco had NO engineers. Until Tiffin started building frames they had no engineers.

Are you saying no frame engineers, or no engineers of any kind? While I can't prove they do have, I just find it hard to believe. Can you support this or give a source for the information? I would have thought that engineers would be involved in design of the RV that rides on the chassis or trailer frame even if they don't design the frame/chassis??

........... I blame it on the consumer. We want cheap. This is my "defense" of Lippert. Consumer wants cheap and gets it. QC isn't cheap either. That is severely lacking in this industry. It raises the price of the units. Again customer drive this price.

I agree with this, but not just on the subject of frames. Customers buy based upon price and then complain that the cheap RV doesn't have the quality of those passed over because of cost. There is a long history in the RV industry of high quality RV manufacturers that have failed and disappeared into history because they could not sell their products in large enough numbers to continue in business. Each time the economy goes into the dumper we loose a few manufacturers and usually the higher quality, thus more expensive RV builders are some of the first to go. A few manage to hang on but most of us could make up a pretty long list of quality RV companies that failed and went away, if we have been watching them for very many years. It is sad, but true. Educating the potential buyer is the only way that this will ever change, if then.

As I read the DMV website on the subject, you will renew using the receipt from your current inspection and it will then last for an additional 12 months.

It will require that you remove the refrigerator from the RV. Once that is done it will then involve removing the entire cooling unit, which is the largest part of the refrigerator, including the boiler, condenser, evaporator, all coils and associated plumbing. It will mean removal of the propane burner & electric heater, as well as a number of other connections. An experienced RV tech can usually do the job in a couple of hours. Of course, once completed you will then need to put it back into the RV and connect 12V, power and propane again.

I could buy a complete reconditioned one for less than $500. Have you heard of these and are they OK.

Most of them are good but check to see what sort of warranty the company gives you. Will you be installing it yourself? If not you also need to get an estimate of that cost before you make your choice.

. Can the cooling unit be repaired or is it toast?

Cooling units can be replaced but there is no proof yet that yours is the problem. There are also several circuit boards in the refrigerator which could cause the problem, but since the heat sources are operating but it isn't cooling would lead us to believe that it is the cooling unit. Have you done any trouble shooting as yet? Is it cooing at all? Do you have any fault codes?

I don't know that I would agree that most of us are using household refrigerators, but there certainly is a growing trend in that direction. With the improvement in inverter & battery technology it will likely continue to move that way, but I really think that you should do some trouble shooting before we conclude that you need a new refrigerator.