kenosavvy

Make sure you design your park with lots of level pull-throughs. One thing Class A RVers hate is having to unhook the towed or being forced to level the RV when staying just for the night. Also, have your rates higher for short stays and enticing for monthly or longer stays. To make sure you're profitable, have electricity a separate item so RVers don't overuse air conditioning in the summer and electric heaters (instead of furnaces) in the winter, especially for the longer stays. RVers don't really mind paying for electricity if the other rates are low. Clean restrooms and nice clean showers are important also, even though many RVers seldom use them. Garbage bins need regular pickups so they never become unsightly full, and a good recycling program is looked upon favorably by a majority of RVers. Park security is another item regarded as important by RVers, especially at night. A well-lighted campground also is important for security reasons. Cable TV and WiFi are nice to have but not as important as it was a few short years ago. Most RVers now have the Internet available on their smartphones these days and a lot of them also have satellite dishes for TV reception. The times certainly are a-changin'.

I cleaned my 'side by side' radiator/CAC again yesterday. This time, I first steam cleaned the radiator/CAC from the engine side. Then I used Simple Green diluted about 4-1 in a garden sprayer with hot water, applied from the engine side again, through the fan blades. Then, after about 10 minutes, I rinsed from the outside using a garden hose and sprayer. Then I steam cleaned from the outside and rinsed again. The rinse water was pretty dirty from the first rinse, but not that dirty from the second rinse. I found a hose the same size as the slobber tube and clamped it and extended it to the back of the motorhome. Now we'll see if the radiator/CAC stays any cleaner this year without that oil getting on the radiator/CAC.

What is a cam position sensor, what does it do and where on the engine is it located?

I've changed my own oil and filter on every vehicle I've owned since the first car I bought after graduating from high school almost 50 years ago. These vehicles include automobiles, a diesel truck, and now a diesel pusher MH. Here's some things I do when changing oil: 1. You're always going to spill some oil somewhere so be prepared for it. I keep sheets of cardboard to place under the engine to catch everything that I spill. I have learned to always wear a pair of coveralls over my clothing and to have plenty of paper towels handy and in each pocket of the coveralls before I start. My wife never complains about washing my dirty coveralls since it doesn't matter if they are spotless or not after they are washed. 2. Remove the oil filler cap before draining the oil. This is supposed to allow the used oil to drain faster. Get a large plastic storage container that will fit under the MH to catch the used oil. WalMart has a variety of sizes and they are cheap. Don't bother to clean the container after using it, recycle the oil and put the cover on it and set it aside until the next oil change. After removing the oil pan bolt, look at your watch and wait at least 1/2 hour before replacing the oil pan bolt. Use this time to get your new oil, filter, and filter wrench tools ready to change the oil filter. 3. Replace and tighten the oil pan bolt and then move the used oil storage container to a location directly beneath the oil filter. 4. Remove the oil filter and drain the used oil that it contains into the storage container that holds the used oil. Use your index finger to wipe new oil around the rubber gasket on the new oil filter. Then if it's a diesel engine, fill the oil filter with new oil. This will insure that your engine won't stall because of low oil pressure when you first start it up after the oil change. When installing the oil filter, screw it on until you feel the gasket make contact. Then using a magic marker that you keep in your coveralls, mark a line on the bottom of the oil filter so that it will point to the front of the vehicle after tightening the oil filter an additional 3/4 of a turn. Then tighten the filter 3/4 of a turn, using a filter wrench if necessary. I can usually do this with my bare hands, but I'll use a filter wrench if my hands are slippery or it's hard to turn. 5. Add the new diesel oil. My Cummins ISB engine requires 15 quarts. Be sure to include the oil that you put into the oil filter. If you buy new diesel oil in gallon containers, have the exact amount ready before you start. For me, I remove one quart from a gallon container so I have 4 gallons (minus one quart) available to add. 6. Where I live, the retail establishments that sell oil are required by law to take your used oil. I usually dump my used oil into a ten gallon container with a lid on it. I then put that container into a a larger plastic box in the trunk of my car (to keep it from tipping over while driving) and bring it in to be recycled. They return my container after dumping the oil into their container. 7. Be sure to log the date and mileage of the oil change into a log book you keep for the vehicle.

I cleaned my "side by side radiator/CAC" configuration today and found it dirtier than I thought it would be. The back side (viewed from the back of the motorhome) was clean, but peering between the fan blades with a trouble light showed that the other side was rather dirty. Like you said, it was dirtier around the perimeter of the fan blades than in the middle. I tried 3 applications of Dawn soap with a garden sprayer (1/2 bottle of soap with 1 gallon of hot water) and rinsed between each application. This cleaned a little but not good enough. I then applied 3 applications of full strength Simple Green. This worked a little better. I noticed that my fan blades were black, covered with dirt and oil. Would it help at all to clean the fan blades also? I was able to clean the engine side of the fan blades with the Simple Green, but I left the back side of the fan blades as is. That side would be difficult to clean. I really didn't see oil on the radiator/CAC, unless the debris I did see was dried so much that it didn't look like oil. But if there's that much oil on my fan blades, it must be elsewhere as well, right? I see a lot of black paint chipped off the fins where the water pressure from rinsing knocked it off. Would it help to touch that up with black paint or would that only be a cosmetic fix? I'm still wondering whether steam cleaning might help in combination with the soap and Simple Green.

Brett, Thanks for the reply. I still don't understand why my engine is called 'stacked'. Stacked implies one unit on top of the other, and mine is not that way at all, it's side by side. Anyway, do you recommend hosing the CAC and radiator from the front side while the engine is running? How would one do that, just point the sprayer through the fan area? Wouldn't the fan kick the water back at you? I've never done it that way and am not sure if I want to, but another user recommended it. And since the dirt is blown in from the front side, doesn't the dirt have to be removed from that side also (implying hosing from the back side)? And what things, besides the alternator, shoudn't get wet when hosing these areas from either side? Also, no mention of steam cleaning was suggested, but they do use steam to clean the CAC and radiator at the Cummins facilities. - Rolf

I don't see anything in your article that applies to my diesel engine. It's a 2001 Cummins ISB, and the CRC and the radiator are rear mounted and side by side, not sandwiched. I've cleaned it before but not sure if I'm doing it the best way. I get into the engine compartment under the bed and spray the front-facing CRC and radiator sides with a strong solution of Simple Green and water. I let it sit for 15-20 minutes and then I hose it down with a lawn sprayer from the back. I never see any oil on the CRC or the radiator and it never really seems that dirty, but I want to do whatever I can to get those temperatures down when I'm climbing those mountains and the dreaded check engine light comes on. My problem is that there are so many things in the way that prevent me from cleaning the whole surface area of the CRC and radiator. I'm wondering if those areas that are hardest to clean are what's really causing the problem. A technician at the Cummins shop in Albuquerque, NM told me that the only way to get those areas clean was to have the whole CRC and radiator removed for cleaning. I want to avoid that expense if possible. - Rolf