richard5933

The chart in that publication shows that the tires mounted on the 8.25" rims, so that's a good thing (if that's what you have). The only missing piece in the equation is what your coach's actual weight is. Unless I missed it somewhere in this thread, I don't believe you've posted it. If you don't have a current weight, perhaps you can run across a scale on your way to the dealer.

Mounting a tire on a rim narrower than the specifications can be done. We have it on our tires/wheels. However, there is a reduction in the load capacity when this is done. For example, our tires have a max pressure of 130psi when mounted on a 9" rim. When on a 8.25" rim like we have the max pressure is only 120psi. The max load capacity drops from what's possible at 130psi to what's possible at 120psi. I've just tried to find the appropriate information in the Hankook technical manual but had no success. I couldn't even find the tire you're looking at in the size you need. Not saying it's not there, just that I couldn't find it. My suggestion is to contact Hankook and get the specs on the load capacity when mounted on your rims. Would really suck to have them mounted and then later on find out that the narrower rims reduced the capacity below where you need it to be.

I know that our beast is a different species, but our coach came from the factory with a louvered belly pan under the entire engine bay. Ours serves two purposes - it helps direct airflow in the most optimal manner possible for engine cooling, and it prevents all kinds of road debris from getting sucked through the engine bay and/or radiator. Before removing it, I'd want to know what the airflow patterns are in the rear of the coach - particularly when driving over grassy areas. I've seen some coaches create a virtual vortex behind/under the engine bay as they crawl through campgrounds, and it doesn't take much imagination to picture what the radiator would look like if that debris was somehow introduced into the radiator's air flow. Some coaches can develop some pretty bizarre low-pressure zones under/behind/near the rear of the vehicle, so it might be a good idea to think this through before discarding this if it was factory installed.

Did the mobile repair guy give you any indication of why he wasn't able to install the kit? From your description it sounds like he wasn't able to gain access to the necessary gas line plumbing parts, but that's just a guess. Perhaps the problem is that there is not room the install the necessary hardware? Can you post a few photos of the bay holding your propane tank(s) as well as the area surrounding the plumbing?

Whether or not a LEO takes over and arranges a tow for you is very dependent on the situation. When we had our collision in Iowa, our coach wasn't blocking the state highway, but the wrecker would when it did the recovery. I was going to try and arrange a tow through my policy, but in the end I accepted the officer's offer to find someone local. It was the best idea really - we were in a small town far from anywhere, and he knew which wrecker services had the equipment needed to pull our coach from the ditch and to his tow yard. The insurance company's 800-number operator was still asking me stupid questions when the wrecker called by the trooper arrived. Took them about an hour to recover and load up our coach - had to pull axles, drag out of the ditch, and then properly lift the front of the coach. Insurance company ended up eating the cost in the final settlement. All that said, we still have tow coverage from our insurance company. God willing, we won't need to use it and if we do the next time we need to use it the reason will be far more benign.

At least we didn't have the blizzard that rolled through the more northern parts of Wisconsin this weekend, complete with 100+ car pile up which shut down the Interstate. Many injured and I believe at least one death. What they got makes our weather seem downright mild.

Same thing here - winds have been straight-line since last night steady over 30 mph. We've had extended periods with the wind steady over 50 mph. Sounds like a train going by when it comes from just the right direction. Really glad I installed the 'optional' support wires on my vertical ham antenna. Temp will go from high of 38F to single digits tonight. Can't wait for spring. This is starting to wear me out.

Knowing the make/model really helps us try and focus our replies to your specific situation. There are so many rigs that fall in the class A category, ranging from bus conversions to the GMC motor homes made decades ago. Not everyone has a modern "normal" motor home. Some have wood framing under fiberglass skins, some metal, and some have limited or no framing at all. Knowing what you're working on is important. I'm not sure about others, but I read posts on the FMCA forum on a smartphone, using a format that shows me only my "unread" posts. I don't go forum by forum, so it's easy to miss which specific forum you posted in. I apologize for not noticing which forum you posted in.

One thing missing from any GPS unit that I've used is 'back azimuth'. Would be great to just have a button that would take us back from where we started, particularly when the starting point was not a saved place.

Agreed. Garmin is great till it's not. We usually stop at the welcome center when entering a state for the first time and pick up a free road map. Usually the most current maps. Having been a Boy Scout, I do like to be prepared. According to Murphy, the GPS will cut out on the piece of road where you need the most help.

According to the link regional tires are designed for 30,000 - 80,000 miles per year, highways with some secondary routes. Seems like many tires are sold as 'cross-over' tires for both regional and long-haul use. Regional vs long haul tire has nothing to do with max speed rating. Tires in both categories are easy to find with a 75-mph max speed rating. My understanding is that it is more to do with tread life and ability to withstand scrubbing and abrasion and scuffing. Long haul tires are often designed to maximize fuel economy and longevity - designed to go more than 100,000 in a year. They have lower rolling resistance, light weight constructions, and a rubber compound to survive high miles. Regional tires will be built to withstand operation in tight quarters, curb scrubbing, life on rough and gravel roads, etc. Tire design is really a compromise, balancing the various aspects. Harder rubber compounds to increase mileage - ride suffers. Thicker sidewalls to protect against curbs - heavier tire. Etc. Etc. Whether a tire is regional or long-haul is somewhat subjective, and to me more important is getting a tire with the proper load limit and speed rating. Best advice I can suggest is talk to a good commercial tire dealer and get their advice. If the dealer you're talking to is telling you that any tire he sells will start to shed tread after 5-6 hours on the highway then I think it's time to find another tire dealer.

I believe that you'll find tires with and without the decoupling groove in both long haul and regional tires. Here's a page with a brief description of the various types of tires: https://www.bfgoodrichtrucktires.com/tires/tires-101/tire-selection-tips/application/

If you do decide to replace the pivot shaft, have you contacted the manufacturer or supply house to see if that part number has been superseded by a new part? Often times they use specific numbers for each RV manufacturer, but the underlying part can be replaced by a part with a more generic number. https://www.wiperparts.com/

I've got a set of LED 'driving lights' installed under the bumper. They're not DOT approved and send light all over the place. They do help us find our way in campgrounds or on back roads, but I can't use them on public roads. They run directly from the 24v circuits. I installed them at the end of last season as a stop-gap till I got the headlights working better.

Yeah - that's my hope. Should help us get where we're going. Realized we had a problem when I pulled in the TT campground in Lancaster PA after dark - there was no street lighting to speak of and we could barely see enough to find our site. This was the first trip that we've had more than a couple of minutes after dark on anything other than well-lit roads, which explains why I hadn't noticed it before.

I thought about that - problem would be having to run new wiring from back to front to power the headlights. Also, they've got the headlight circuits done with so much redundancy that I really hate to touch it. The relays for the headlights and the running lights are intertwined somehow, and I have yet to fully grasp what they were doing. I have figured out though that I've got lots of redundancy and it just seemed more simple to replace the antiquated resistor panel with the modern DC-DC converters and call it done. For what it's worth, we use our 24v system to charge our 12v house batteries with one of these: https://www.sterling-power-usa.com/SterlingPower24volt-to-12volt-dc-to-dc-batterytobatterycharger.aspx Great part about that is that it's a smart charger and will charge the house batteries as they need independently of what the bus's voltage regulator is doing. It can put up to 70 amps into our house batteries to charge while on the road. So far so good.

Rich - I did run through that routine during the summer when I first realized I had a problem. The voltage leaving the resistor panel and the voltage at the headlamp sockets were the same. If I remember correctly, about 11.9v. The factory resistor panel is actually double layered. Hard to see in the photo, but each of those 6 resistors is actually two stacked on top of each other. They are wired in a combination of series/parallel, and in theory the sets are matched to the headlights to provide the necessary resistance to allow the headlamps to burn at maximum brightness. I tried to find a way to make the OEM resistor panel work properly, but in the end decided that it just didn't make sense when these converters were available. I also hate to see the alternator work so hard only to be providing heat for the tool compartment with all these resistors. Not only will they be more efficient, these converters will provide steady 13.8v to the headlights (I hope). Sounds like for now I am going to try and wire them without any capacitors. If there is noticeable flicker or pulsation I'll re-address things and add something to the output of the converters to smooth things out.

Not so easy in our case. No free pulley, and no room where we'd need it. Besides, other than the headlights nothing on the coach chassis system runs on 12v. I suspect that this change was made so that the easier-to-obtain 12v sealed beams could be used. The 24v headlights are really hard to find. LED are definitely in the plans for the future, but not this year. The budget and my desire to take that on just aren't there. No photos of the headlight buckets on hand, and won't be able to get to them till spring. The problem I'm seeing with putting LED headlights into our bus is going to be the depth of the LED headlights, especially with the cooling fins on the back side of them. I'd have to do some cutting to the buckets, and even then I've seen videos of others having problems getting them to fit. We've got quad 5-3/4" headlights, which are hard to find in LED to begin with, especially for applications like ours. That said, if you know of DOT-approved 5-3/4" headlights which are shallow enough to work I'm all ears. The headlights had a very dim light - all four of them equally. First step was to get new sealed beams, as the originals must have been in there for years. The mirrors were yellowed and not doing their job. New sealed beams helped greatly, but things were still too dim. Voltage going to the resistor panel is where it should be. All four headlight circuits are providing over 24v with engine off and up to 28 with it running. The problem was apparently downstream from that. I removed the resistor panel and cleaned every connector and terminal. Everything visibly looked good - no broken resistors or wires, no corrosion, etc. Best I could get for output was 11.9v which is simply not enough for the sealed beams to shine bright enough. My guess is that in the nearly 50 years these things have been in place there has been some internal breakdown which has upped the resistance. I thought about getting new resistors to match the old ones, but there was really no sense in doing that when I could just replace the whole thing with the DC-to-DC converters and have steady 13.8v regardless of engine speed. All that's left now is to wait for a warm enough day to work outside (40+ degrees for me) and get to it. From the comments above it seems that I should be good to go just replacing the resistors with the new converters. I plan mount them on the same metal plate and tie into the harness using a new 8-wire connector (actually, will probably go with two Packard type 56 four-wire connectors). Thanks for the input.

I opted for the pedestal-mounted unit for the same reasons as above. Doesn't take much to have one of these units give their life to protect the coach, and I'd rather have the plug-N-play option rather than having to install something permanently.

I could use the assistance of an electrical engineer here...Hopefully with all the ham operators in the group someone can lend a bit of advice. First, the background to the question... I'm in the slow process of updating the headlights on my coach. The main coach chassis is 24v. The headlights are standard 12v automotive sealed beams. They are wired in four separate circuits for redundancy so that if something fails, only one something fails. Eventually I'll update to LED headlights, but first I'm just focused on getting what I've got working properly. (The headlight buckets won't easily accept LED headlights due to the extra depth required). The way that GM converted the 24v to 12v was through the use of a bank of resistors. At the moment, after going through every connection with a fine tooth comb, the highest output I can get from the resistors is 11.8v which explains why my headlight output is dismal. I assume the resistors have failed due to age. The input voltage is correct and ranges from over 24v with engine off to about 28v with alternator running at full engine speed. Photo attached is the OEM resistor panel that I'm replacing. Since the sealed beam headlights work best at about 13.8v, I decided to upgrade from the resistors to a modern 24v-to-13.8v converter. One for each of the four circuits. This is the unit I'm going with: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LY8D7U0/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 At 40 amps each, these have more capacity than I need and should leave plenty of headroom in the circuit. They will provide a steady 13.8v to the headlights regardless of engine speed. Everything seemed good. Until I saw this line in the instructions: It is recommended to use stable DC power for the input power supply If you use the pulsed DC power provided by the generator, please filter it with capacitor before connecting it to the converter. I'm not sure exactly what they're talking about here. Is the DC power in the coach 'stable'? What is pulsed DC power? Would they be talking about the output from the coach engine's alternator? Is this something I need to be concerned about? I am thinking that they are trying to avoid having the converter output pulsate, causing things like LED lights to pulsate. I'm going to use incandescent bulbs for now, which don't usually exhibit problems quite as much as LEDs. But, I really don't want to have my headlights pulsating. Seems to me that the output from the bus alternator will be tempered quite a bit by the existence of the two 8D batteries in the circuit, so that by the time these converters get the input it will be pretty smooth. I'm sure that if I need the capacitors, more is involved than just slapping a capacitor across the input lines. Maybe something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Suppressor-Single-Phase-Line-Conditioner-JREle-CW4L2-20A-S/dp/B073MCGBP5/ref=pd_lpo_vtph_23_bs_t_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=TWEJRPJQRNY0WP0427DN I'm at about at the end of my knowledge base once we get into the nitty gritty of modifying electronic circuits. This is the portion of my ham operator ticket I barely scraped by with, so I could use some help.

Thanks for providing some facts on the issue of fuel prices. While I'm sure that the data is correct, I'm not sure this is reason to panic. We customarily see swings in prices from winter to summer far bigger than 10-15 cents, so I'll do like everyone else and just ride through the storm. What I'd really like to know is why did diesel fuel prices pass up regular unleaded prices a couple of years ago. For as long as I can remember, diesel was cheaper. I believe it still is in many parts of the world outside the US. In recent years, however, it seems that diesel brings a premium price.

What'ya mean? It's sunny... It's beautiful... It's just so much snow.

Snow. Way too much snow.

Check the manual to see what it means if the light doesn't work. Could indicate no power to the circuit, or it could be like ours and indicate a problem with the refrigerant side. If it's electrical then you can just work through the circuit from breaker/fuse to compressor connections. This is one of those times that I am glad to have the chassis we have. Our OTR a/c will turn the entire interior into a meat locker if run on full. With over 25 lbs of refrigerant it's a beast of a system.

If you're looking to mount an antenna for use while stationary, then maybe you should consider suction cups. They have a system which is used to mount the vertical generator exhausts that uses a few of these suction cups. There is also a flag pole system which was on display at the rally in Gillette, and I believe that it also uses suction cups. In fact, I remember the guy telling me that some ham radio operators use their flag pole system as the base for creating an antenna system. Of course, if the antenna is for use while on the road, none of this applies. Still don't know which model RV you have, or even if it's a class a or class c. However, If you have a class c you might have a piece of steel roof exposed which can also be used to mount an antenna.