richard5933

Anyone have any first-hand experience with these tires? We're currently riding on Firestone FS400 tires in 315/80R22.5 size. They are great tires, but since they just hit the 7-year mark I'm looking for replacements. The coach originally came with 12R22.5 tires, and the 315s are a common replacement for them and are easier to find. I assume that's why they were put on by the previous owner. However, on a full turn to either side the corner of the tread makes slight contact with the airbag due to the slightly wider size of the 315s. Usually just a problem during parking, but it's possible to go full turn on the road on tight city streets and such so it can potentially become a problem. In every other way I love the current tires and would replace them with another set of the same, but the potential to rub on the air bags has me worried. So, I'm shopping for the proper 12R22.5 tires. I know that they are harder to find on the road, but since we carry a mounted spare that doesn't bother me quite so much. My big unknowns for the FS561 tires are ride quality/comfort and noise. The current tires are great, so I'm a little concerned that I'll put something on there and be disappointed with a harsher or noisier ride. So, if anyone has run a coach with Firestone FS561 tires I'd love to hear what you thought of them. PS: I have considered the Toyo M170, which is also available in the 12R22.5 size. The problem with them is that they have a loaded radius which is about 0.7" less than our current tires, and since our black tank connection is under the coach I'm afraid that the lower ride height would make it difficult to attach the hose (it's already tight down there.) The Firestone FS561 is the first tire in the correct size I've found with the same loaded radius size as our current tires.

I just did a search for the XRV tire 305/70R22.5 on the Michelin site and found it with no problem. Also seeing it for sale on lots of tires dealer's sites. Not sure why your local dealer can't obtain the tires. Almost sounds like they're trying to steer you towards what they have in stock vs the tire you asked for.

Not sure that's going to happen... It's been an odd year as we watch wave after wave of snow and ice scoot south of us and drop lots of white stuff in places that are normally much warmer than us.

Glad you got things worked out successfully.

Welcome to the forum! Glad that you're here. We recently had our carpeting replaced by a certified flooring installer. He specializes in all sorts of oddball jobs, including RV and other small spaces. While there may be some RV-specific places near Atlanta, you might also try and make contact with a few of the better carpet stores in your area. My suggestion would be to go in and talk to the manager, and explain what you are looking for. They'll all be happy to sell you carpet, but the good stores will have a list of qualified installers that work on various types of jobs, including RVs. Stay away from the big box or chain stores and try and find a specialty carpet/flooring store, preferably a privately owned store. When you find a place that can suggest a few names, contact the installers and chat with them. There is a certification program that these guys can go through, so don't be afraid to ask their qualifications and ask to see pictures/get references from other jobs they've done. The furniture and other updates I'll let others address since my knowledge is limited there.

Ok - so mabye not quite the same as a cockpit, but pretty darned close.

I have no problem. All within easy reach. Just like the cockpit of a fighter jet. 😁

Let me know when you're in the area next - it would be fun to have our own little mini rally.

Bruce - You got me curious so I just went and read through the Texas Drivers Handbook to see what's changed down there since I last lived in Texas in the 90s. Boy oh boy, they've messed things up and made a complicated mess of getting a driver's license. However, page 71 of the handbook does have the information about hauling sand and gravel. Seems like in addition to whatever book they gave you for the Class B part they also were pulling questions out of the standard driving book. From an outsider's reading of the rules in Texas, it appears that 3rd party testing is permitted for the skills testing. Would seem like something some of the larger motor home dealers would want to get into to help their customers get into the larger rigs. Hope you can get this worked out and glad to see you posting on the forum.

Greetings from Wisconsin. Sorry I didn't find this thread earlier in the week. Welcome to the forum - you'll find that there are actually still a good number of members with bus conversions. Some DIY, some professional. All amazing and unique in their own way. At the rally in Gillette I walked the entire grounds looking for all the bus conversions, amazed at all the work that went into them. Ours was converted on a brand new shell by Custom Coach in 1974 and has been lovingly used as a motor home since then. It's pretty much still the way it looked in '74. Love the way you've got yours set up and hope to see it in person some day soon. If you want to see ours you can look here:

Just a guess here, but have you shut the power (12v and 120v) to the fridge for a few minutes? That might let the circuits reset and thing might work after you turn the power back on. Works wonders on some devices. Does nothing on others. Cost nothing to try.

If they don't provide technical support, then it's unlikely the person you spoke to would know whether or not the unit needs to be replaced. To me it seems unlikely that exposure to cold could damage the unit, otherwise there would be warnings all over the thing to not store it outside in the winter. Since we know that they are routinely stored outside in sub-zero temps in the north, without any damage, I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that once you get the thing warmed up it should start to work again. Might need to reset the power to it once you warm it up, but that's easy. There are lots of good threads out there on other sites. Just do a Google search on "Dometic LP fridge winter problem" and you'll find them.

Sounds like good advice. Good news is that with the cold temps there is no worry about food going bad. Friend of mine had an apartment in Paris - it was in an old district, and his 'winter fridge' was a cabinet with a back side that opened to the outside air with nothing but a screen to keep food from falling out. Maybe you have a basement bay that is at about the right temp where you can store food to accomplish the same thing till you get a definitive answer from Dometic.

If my understanding is correct, it's not the temp of the coils inside the fridge that is the problem. The problem appears to be that the heating element cannot always overcome the extreme cold and heat the ammonia solution to make cold. I know it sounds weird, but if the system in the rear of the fridge cannot make heat, it cannot make cold. The system at the rear of the fridge is pretty much isolated from the interior of the coach. This is largely done to prevent any exhaust gases from entering the interior as the system operates. Unfortunately, that means that all that balmy air inside your coach isn't going to help the backside of the fridge be warm enough to operate. I've search through the manual for your unit that I could find, and it doesn't mention anything specific to winter operation. However, there are notes in the manual for another Dometic manual which specify a partial vent cover for use when outside temps fall below +8C (approx +45F). I can't find such a recommendation specifically for your model, however. I did find one recommendation that mentioned parking the rig so that the side of the coach with the fridge gets as much sun exposure as possible. Guess that might help on sunny days. Hopefully there are a few absorption fridge experts out there with more specific advice?

Shooting from the hip here, so hopefully someone with more experience with absorption refrigeration can confirm the theory... These machines make cold by first making heat. Whether on LP or electric, they have to heat the refrigerant. That's why there are vents on the back of the unit, to vent the exhaust gases. From reading a bit online, if the unit is well ventilated to accommodate summer use (the usual time these are used) there exists a possibility that the extreme cold outside air coming in the vents is keeping the unit from being able to produce enough heat to make the inside of the fridge cold. Some solutions I'm reading about this are variants on a theme - warm the temps in the area behind the fridge. They include things like placing a light bulb behind the fridge to warm things a bit and/or to partially block the intake to help keep the temperature up back there. Both of these seem to me to have inherent safety issues, so I don't feel comfortable suggesting these as a solution to you. Hopefully others can chime in as the method of partially blocking the vent seems popular on other sites, and it would be nice to hear from someone that's actually implemented that as a solution.

Welcome to the forum. Glad that you're here. A little more information might help us offer suggestions. What type of refrigerator are you talking about (make/model)? I'm assuming that the refrigerator is inside a heated RV and not outside in the -14 weather, so what makes you think that something has gelled? If this is an LP fridge, have you checked all the necessary outside vents to be sure that they are clear of snow and that they haven't become blocked by freezing condensation in/on the vents?

Terrible accident and it's by the grace of God that no one died. Hard to make any definitive assessments of what happened without more information, but from the information posted on the irv2 site, the RV collided with a small car and rolled. It is shocking how it looks like the body simply detached from the chassis. Some manufacturers do a better job of building a solid and strong body, even going as far as using steel framing and making sure that the body is firmly attached to the chassis. Others (most) do not. At the RV show in Milwaukee last year I was able to talk to a few manufacturer's reps, and some are still using wood framing and or just laminated walls with no support cages. Even the ones with steel framing in the body sometimes use only fiberglass in the front end. We walked away from a head-on collision in our coach in 2017. That collision really emphasized the importance of having a coach which was not only comfortable when camping but also road worthy and able to withstand a collision. We looked at a few modern RVs after the collision, but none that provided the safety features we wanted was in our price range. They're out there, but they're not always the lowest cost. We opted for another bus conversion. I think that there are many improvements in RV safety that could easily be made by the manufacturers. But, in my conversations with the manufacturer's reps at the RV show it was obvious that more consumers are concerned with bells and whistles than they are with safety. I'm thinking that people assume a vehicle as large and heavy as an RV must be safe, especially considering that they are built on a heavy duty chassis. As soon as safety and collision protection becomes important to consumers, my guess is that the manufacturers will start to come around.

Another member posted asking for recommendations for a toilet for a motor home. After spending about half an hour doing some research to help answer the questions, it appears that the entire thread has disappeared. As I clicked on the 'post' button to post my reply the forum responded that it could not find the thread. I have no idea what happened, but my assumption is that it has something to do with the last post on the thread - something about this subject being offensive. Not sure how a discussion about RV toilets is too offensive or inappropriate for a forum about all things RV. Maybe someone can explain how a thread disappears like this?

I don't have any hard facts on this, but I'd be willing to guess that a huge number of electrical problems can be traced back to ground connection problems. Glad to hear that you are making progress. Sounds like you're attacking this methodically and will get it fully functional soon.

Bob - how did you check the element? Continuity testing or did you pull it and do a visual? If you feel confident working around live 120v wiring, and if you have a test meter or 120v testing lamp, you can try the following. Steps I would take are: Breaker on Reset button is pushed all the way in (located inside the maintenance panel of the water heater near the element/thermostat) 120v to thermostat (the one mounted on the water heater and which sends power to the element) 120v to element when water is cold The 120v side of these things don't have a lot of moving parts. If the breaker is on, 120v goes to the thermostat. If the water is cold enough the thermostat sends power to the element. If you've had a situation where something went wrong (ie: power on but water heater empty, or thermostat failed in the 'on' position) the reset button will pop and cut power to the element. This should help you narrow down where the problem is. Good thing is that most parts you'll need are easy to get hold of and easy to replace. Hopefully it's just a tripped breaker or a popped reset button.

Not sure if this has been mentioned, but leveling jacks are not intended to be used as jack stands for working under the coach. Please read through the safety warnings in your manual about properly supporting the coach when you are under it doing maintenance, especially if you are doing maintenance work on the leveling jacks themselves. Here's a piece of the warning from HWH: WARNING: BLOCK FRAME AND TIRES SECURELY BEFORE CRAWLING UNDER VEHICLE. DO NOT USE LEVELING JACKS OR AIR SUSPENSION TO SUPPORT VEHICLE WHILE UNDER VEHICLE OR CHANGING TIRES. VEHICLE MAY DROP AND/OR MOVE FORWARD OR BACKWARD WITHOUT WARNING CAUSING INJURY OR DEATH. There have been deaths over the years as a result of vehicles (coaches) falling as owners worked on them, so proper safety precautions are in order. I know that some will say they've worked for years under a motor home using the leveling jacks to hold it up, even changing tires using the jacks. Still not a good idea, especially given their propensity to fail from time to time. A properly sized/rated jack stand placed according to the manual could save a life when working underneath the coach.

You should have a battery charger for your house batteries already onboard. Might be a converter/charger, might be an inverter/charger, or might be a stand-along charger. Not sure what coach you have, but if you post some more information I'm sure that someone with the same or similar coach can tell you more about it. I have a built-in stand-alone house battery charger, and it's basically the only thing that I've got turned on right now. I've got a trickle charger incorporated into the system that keeps my chassis batteries topped off as well. If you don't already have something built into your setup you can easily get a small battery tender that clips onto the chassis battery posts to keep it fresh. You'll see that many people add their coach make/model either to their profile or to their signature, as well as a name.

Welcome to the FMCA forum. When you find the settings/profile page, please add a little information about your coach so that we can better answer questions like this for you. I've got mine parked for the winter months. Everything is off, with the exception of the battery chargers. A modern charger can be left on all the time and will keep your batteries in top shape. Some of the newer coaches will have phantom electric draws all the time, even with switches in the 'off' position. Doesn't take too long for the batteries to drain down to the danger zone where damage is possible, so leaving the chargers on to maintain them is a good idea. Assuming you're in a warm climate and/or you've winterized the plumbing, nothing else should need to be on.

If you can get to the back side of the switch, you can also check to be sure that all the wires are firmly seated. A lighted switch usually has it's own ground wire, and if that gets loose light won't work.

I believe that most roof-top a/c units can run on a 15-amp circuit, with actual draw slightly less than that. Technically it might be possible to run two units on 30 amps, but I'd guess that at some point they'll cycle at the same time and the start-up draw might pop the breaker. Or, more likely, the battery charger or something else which was forgotten will kick in and increase the draw over the 30-amp limit. Obviously I'm talking about those with more manual power management. In our coach each of the a/c units draw 19 amps on startup, and about 15 otherwise when the compressor is running. We can run one on 30 amps, with a little left over for things like lighting, battery charger, and fans. Lucky for us our basement a/c units will turn the coach into a meat locker if we want, so one can usually keep us comfortable enough. We had only 30 amps in Gillette, but there was no problem keeping cool inside. Since our kitchen is all electric, we carry a portable propane single burner stove which we use whenever we're hooked up to 30-amp service. If we use the microwave, the a/c is first switched to ventilate only with the compressor switched off.