sundancev

You guys are hilarious. Want to know about cost of insurance. Check out S Florida and the Florida Keys for insurance costs. Between normal H/O, Windstorm and Flood (all separate policies) you can easily pay $5 grand a year for a typical home. Saw a recent article that for the State Windstorm Insurance pool over $600 a year in premium cost per policy was due to litigation. Florida has an active advertising program for litigators that simply adds on to the normal costs of Hurricanes.

I wonder if you have the bypass valve turned to fill the tank and it is filling it to the top and sending it out the roof vent.

Thanks Bill and Ken. I guess I will bite the bullet. Going on 8,000 mile excursion this summer and every little bit helps. As one of the writers early on said, even in flat Florida simply going up inclines of overpasses the engine drops to lower gear and even ac cuts out until we are on downslopes. I miss that big Cummins now. Alas losing your sight is a pain more ways than one. Paul

Hi, I posted on another thread prior to finding this one on Google. We have a 2007 Itasca Spirit on a 2006 E450 chassis. Can anyone tell me if the 5 Star tuner really makes a difference on mpg. We got 6.7 at 65 mph on trip and backed off to 55 mph and got 7.7 mpg. We thought our ISC Cummins 350HP was bad but now find it was great in comparison. I am willing to fork of the $450 for 5 Star tuner if it actually improves mpg by even 1 mpg. Thanks in advance. Paul

Hello all RV'rs. After 10 years full timing in a 39' Fleetwood Providence with a 350HP Diesel pusher, we downgraded recently to a 2007Winnebago Spirit with a Ford V-10. It is built on a 2006 E450 chassis. We consistently averaged 8 miles per gallon towing a 5,000 pound Ford Explorer in almost any venue E-W and W-E for some 180,000 miles. Yes we enjoyed the ride. Unfortunately age has its burdens. Mine being loss of 50% of left eye sight and prognosis not very good. So, we bought a house again and decided to rv perhaps 3 months a year. Bought the smaller coach that my wife was a little more comfortable driving. Over time we found as bridges on the Interstates were being rebuilt througout the West, many of the Interstates had sections where traffic was a narrow two lanes. When a big semi was coming from the other direction, perhaps inches away from mirrors touching my wife would become understandably nervous. So in anticipation of the day when she would do all the driving, we downsized. When we bought the Spirit in very good condition, barely used with 19k miles on it, we thought mileage would be perhaps better than with the big heavy Providence. First real trip, mileage was 6.7 mpg at average speed of 65 mph. So we dropped down to 55 for next leg and came in with 7.8 mpg. Does this seem normal to anyone. I think it is low. Motor seems to purr. We have 6 brand new Michelins so tires are not a problem. Some days wish we still had high mileage Diesel which actually is just broken in. This Ford V10, I thought at 19k would also just be broken in. Thanks for any advice. Paul

Many years ago we had a Winnebago Brave with a Gas powered Onan Generator. We were crossing the plains in 100 plus degree temps for several days and got very sporadic use out of our generator. No one seemed to be able to figure out what was wrong. We tried one more time in San Antonio TX. RV dealer there said he would have it fixed in less than an hour. Went on to say Onan had issued a bulletin some time previously indicating a problem with some of the fuel pumps quitting in high temp days/climate and recommended replacing. We never had another problem. I realize that was long ago and likely addressed with newer models but you never know. Strange things still happen. Paul

I am not an electrician or remotely competent to comment on this but suspect the 25 amp breaker pictured on the image is in fact for the battery charger part of the inverter and is not a 25amp breaker for the output. My Xantrax has two breakers for the output one is 20 amp and one is 15amp, in addition to the little round 25amp breaker similar to what is pictured. Paul

For what it is worth. I am having problems currently with my inverter electrical system Xantrax 458 2000. Just had it bench tested and all is fine. Was told by one distributer that temp sensor was all important and must be installed in order to maintain warranty. Stopped at Xantrax national headquarters in Elkhart last week and the guy there sort of laughed at the statment. In fact said there was also an internal temp sensor built into the Xantrax inverter so in fact it was not absolutely essential. I sort of suspect your problem is battery related. As one commenter indicated AC units should have nothing to do with it as they will not go through the inverter. I suppose if you did have them running full bore at same time as lots of other things were running it is possible voltage/amps could be lower than needed but frankly I think that is unlikely particulary since you said you did not have AC units going at same time. Wish my problem was that simple. Been to two major Xantax repair guys now and a splendid RV electrician and still struggling with my problem. Paul

Home Depot and Camping World have replacements I think made by GE. They all work about the same and you just need to buy the correct one with your particular end fittings.

We had a similar issue. Freightliner indicated we had a 160 amp alternator. The Electrical expert at Lazy Days in a forum discussion we attended some years ago, stated the standard 160 amp alternator installed at the factory might not contribute a significant amount to house batteries due to the load of modern Diesel setups in today's motor homes. After installing an 18 cf Samsung Fridge running off the inverter, we noticed voltage was becoming an issue on a frequent basis. We likely also had an issue with the existing alternator in addition to the load from the new Samsung. One day we actually had to run the Onan Generator to help recharge chassis batteries as we were driving on I-75 in Florida. The chassis battery voltage had dropped to 11 volts on the dash indicator. I went to TRS Starter/Alternator repair in Orlando and had them rebuild the Alternator to 200 amp. Money well spent. No more problems. TRS is a splendid outfit with very experienced and competent folks. We had read about them previously in these forums and found them to be the place to go in Florida for Alternator/Starter service on big rigs.

sstgermain, I actually had that one installed and used for several years. It worked sporadically. That was the part that actually started the fire on top of the battery so I decided to try it without the lsl toad charger now. I had thought of using 10 gauge wire initially but decided the lsl toad charger had the diodes and went with that. I want to try it now without a diode, hence the question to you kind folks. I also think the 10 amp fuse is a good one. My reason for 20amp was in case the battery was really down, perhaps a 10amp fuse would not allow the downstrread charge in enough amperage without blowing. In any event I thank you all. Paul

Hello all. I developed a problem today and due to a passerby caught it before it became serious. I had purchased a toad charger apparatus several years ago as we traveled from coast to coast and often dry camped while doing so. The toad charging apparatus allowed us to maintain a charge from our 350HP Fleetwood Providence to our Ford Explorer for some time without problems and without running the Genny. Recently the apparatus failed to do the job and we would often have to use jumper cables to start the Explorer after a day's drive. I sanded connectors and terminals as much as feasible thinking that might be the problem. In any event, sporadically some days it seemed to work and some days not. If I thought about it in time I would run the Genny for a half hour before we stopped and the additional voltage almost insured the Explorer (Toad) would crank ok. Today, I stopped at a rest stop to make a phone call and a passerby beat on our door telling me he thought we had a fire. Sure enough, we did have a fire on our battery in toad that melted through the top of the battery. I was able to put out with a fire extinguisher and cut the charging wiring from the toad battery post and disconnected the motor home side of the charging cable. I stopped at Wal-Mart and picked up a new battery. Tonight all is well except I no longer have a toad charging system I still have #10 gauge wire from motor home to a toad connection that is also #10 wire and I am now thinking of just getting rid of the toad battery charging apparatus completely and just keeping the #10 wire and putting in 20amp fuses at each end of the positive circuit and leave it with a simple plug that can be unplugged each time we disconnect the toad from the motor home. The plug that we use is a trolling motor connect/disconnect that is really heavy duty. The apparatus previously installed included a diode(?) that purportedly kept the Toad from back feeding to the motor home if both were running. Not sure how important that is, but it was the selling point when I bought. I did go heavier in the wiring department when I installed initially by using #10 wire connecting to my house batteries which are in turn connected to the chassis batteries through a relay of some sort I think. Does anyone have thoughts as to safety of such a hookup if I install 20amp fuses on each positive wire (one for motor home end and one for toad end.) Thanks in advance for any advise you may have. Paul

Hello all. For those interested, here is the rest of the story. Wayne wrote about the hot side of the GFI and how the hot wire had to be wired there etc. When I installed the two new GFI circuits I had blindly followed wire by wire installation. I would take black wire out of defective GFI and put in same slot in new one, then the white wires etc. After reading Wayne's missive I started dreaming abouit the problem during the night and woke up realizing I had never actually volt tested the wires coming into to the GFI outlet box to see if I was hooking up the correct wires to line feed and the correct ones to load feed. I simply followed what had worked for almost 8 years on the original install. Turns out somehow the original install had worked despite being installed backwards. The original GFI had panel wires in holes for load rather than for line. Rookie mistake even though I am still a 75 y/o rookie, I knew enough to put hot line wires from panel to line holes etc. Good lesson for me after spending hours checking wiring, duplex outlets, lights and fridge. Never assume anything even if it seemed to work in the past. I was very lucky in more ways than one. Many thanks to you all for your advice. Once again FMCA forum posters streered me in the right direction. Everything is working well at this point Fridge is down to 37F on Inverter. Paul

Standby for the rest of the story????? I have things working for the moment??????? If it continues to work for the next 8 hours I will tell you what I did.

Thanks to you Wayne and Carl. I was very careful when I installed the new GFI duplex outlets to insure the wires went back the same way. I even pulled one wire at a time and installed in the new GFI in the same spot to insure I did not reverse the polarity. My plan this am is to disconnect power, reset the GFI and run test wire to all the outlets in each circuit for continuity in an attempt to trace the problem that way. After sleeping on it all night, and wondering if the Inverter connection has any thing to do with it, I am also going to disconnect the downstream wires from the inverter and then turn the power on. If the GFI does not trip, I sort of think the potential inverter wiring problem is eliminated from this particular issue. I also mentioned to Brett via message this morning, I have one other concern after sleeping/dreaming about the problem all night. Two weeks ago a friend helped me install a new 3/4" plywood floor for the new fridge to sit on. The old floor was about 4" short of allowing the new fridge to fit all 4 wheels on. When we sat in a camprgound in S Miami all winter not moving, it was no problem. While traveling in the NE, we noticed the very bumpy roads seemed to allow the new fridge to move around a little so we decided to pull the fridge and install a new thicker and longer floor for the fridge to sit on. One of my old friends living in Cape Cod helped move the fridge and fasten the new floor. He had some long sheet rock screws that he was using to fasten the new floor to some 3/4" firring strips that was part of the old floor foundation. I was concerned with all the wiring under the floor that ran from the rear of the motor home forward, we might hit one of the wires if we embedded the longer screws to deep. After we screwed the floor down everything worked great. The fridge foundation was level with all four wheels down and was very solid. Most important the fridge continued to purr. This week we went through NY and PA and hit some terribly bumpy roads. At the same time we had lots of non stop drizzling rain. I am now wondering if the bumpy roads has been just enough to have an extra long screw penetrate an otherwise benign wire sitting near it. The cavity under the fridge floor is not very deep, perhaps 3-4" but has lots of wire and furnace duct (flexible). All of your thoughts and suggestions are helpful. Paul