ambyn

Last week while driving on a somewhat bumpy road in our 08 40' Allegro Bus the right end (motor end) of our American Duo Shades windshield shade crashed to the dashboard with the other end still up at the top of the windshield. My wife really jumped. Fortunately I was able to see enough under the shade to continue driving and we were about 15 minutes (out of a 2 day drive) from our destination. After taking the shade down I determined that the braket at the motor end had failed right at the right-angle bend in the bracket. It appears that it failed due to metal fatigue. I am wondering - 1. Has anyone else had this happen to them? 2. I plan to call MCD tomorrow, does anyone know of a place for parts for the shades other than MCD? Our Bus seems to really take some of the bumps and irregularities in the roads badly and the road conditions seem to be worse this year. This is after putting new shocks on in February with maybe 1000 miles on them. Appreciate any comments. Regards, Amby N

Thanks for the info. Taking the key out should solve my battery problem. Amby N

I have been towing an 06 Trail Blazer 4-down off and on for about 6 months. Sometimes the battery is dead when we are ready to disconnect and drive away. The tow vehicle is an 05 Fleetwood Expedition and the toad has auxiliary air activated brakes from the coach and a +12 V keep alive wire protected by automatic circuit breakers. Is there a fuse somewhere that I should be removing? I do find the towing instructions in the owner's manual a little confusing as to what position to leave the ignition switch in. Can I remove the key all together? Does the steering wheel not lock on this vehicle with the key removed? Any help would be appreciated. Leaving for FL on Saturday and would prefer not having to jump the battery when we arrive. Regards, Amby N

I have an 05 Expedition with a WeatherPro electric patio awning that will not closed. I have rolled it up manually and have it tied off so that it can not open on its own. I have some questions that I could use some help with. 1. Is the motor on the top of the awning arm or inside the roller tube assembly? 2. Has anyone replaced the motor on their own? Regards, Amby N

My 8 year old Trojan T-105s in our 05 Expedition likely need to be replaced. I am on the East coast (ME now and FL before long) and looking for where I can get the best price on 4 new T-105s??? I have never equalized the batteries and wonder if doing it will extend their life or performance??? Thanks, Amby N.

We had a similar problem with our 05 Fleetwood Expedition. Took it to Freightliner just out of warranty. Turned out to be a leak in the air line (poor connection at the rear end) that released the air bag pressure. As I recall the system needs to apply air pressure to the air bag release which is why it was only working sporadically with the leak present. It was fixed at least 3 years ago with no problems since. If you are handy you might get under the coach and see if you can follow the line to determine if you have a loose or poor fitting or a broken line. Some of them are plastic and may have push on connections. Regards, Amby N.

I have contacted the factory and sent them some pictures. Brad Austin sent back one of the photos marked up and some suggestions along the lines of your note above. Should have it installed in a day or two. Thanks for the info.

Bought a Stay-Awhile "T" to support a small external propane tank for our 05 Fleetwood Expedition so that we could dry camp longer. Got under the RV yesterday to plan the work for today and found that the fittings on the "T" are too big for the propane plumbing on the Expedition. Has anyone out there added an external propane tank to a recent Fleetwood diesel pusher and what did you use to do it? I was very disappointed when this would not work. Thanks in advance. Amby N.

Our Norcold ice maker had some problems a couple of years ago. A couple of suggestions - 1. Remove the icemaker and let it completely thaw out, reinstall and see if it then works. If this is the case it could be that the water level needs to be adjusted to make smaller cubes. Ours was set too high or we were tipped a little and they froze in a way that would not let them be ejected from the ice maker. When this happened we did notice a soft grinding sound from the ice maker. 2. It could be that the motor inside the timer on the end of the ice maker is bad or the gears inside it have been stripped (happened to my daughter's maytag that I just fixed). The motor is contained in a module behind the white cover on the end of the ice maker. The cover pulls off with a little effort exposing the water level adjustment screw, a large gear, and multiple test points built into the motor module. I am attaching a Norcold manual that I found online that has an extensive section in it for testing the ice maker (page 54). You should be able to determine if the module is bad following the manual. You will need a good multimeter for the tests. I used this info to trouble shoot our problem in item 1 and my daughter's problem. Fortunately both ice makers have the same motor module. I found a replacement motor module online for just under $50 on ebay from applianceparts.com. Here is the link to one of the eBay listings http://cgi.ebay.com/Icemaker-Motor-Module-Assembly-8201515-fits-Whirlpool-/290583114002?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item43a81a7112 Here is the Norcold manual that I used: http://bryantrv.com/docs2/docs/ncold1200.pdf Do to the way the ice maker fits in my 1200 the water level screw is hard to get at. I drilled a small hole in the plastic cover opposite the screw and marked the cover for which way would increase or decrease the water level. We have not had a problem since I got the water level properly adjusted. Let us know how you make out. Good Luck! Amby N

Found a bad fuse in the controller for the bedroom slide. This RV has 3 controllers. The ones for the 2 big slides look like they have a solid state module for the controls. The bedroom controller has two relays, a circuit breaker, and a 20 A slo-blo fuse. I have pictures is anyone is interested. Amby N

The bedroom slide on our 05 Fleetwood Expedition 38N is stuck open. I can hear a relay click when I push the "IN" switch but do not hear the motor and there is no movement. I believe that it is an electrical problem but do not see any info about the slides in my schematics from Fleetwood. I will be starting to troubleshoot the problem shortly. Any thoughts about how the motor is controlled or wired would be most welcome. Any info on fuses for the slides would also be very useful. Thanks in advance. Amby Nangeroni

One alternative to the types of tow shields that we have found very good is from Coastline Cover Co. (http://www.coastlinecover.com/tow.htm) They make covers that are specific to a vehicle that install on the car and cover from under the front bumper to the top of the windshield. There is no chance that a stone kicked up by a vehicle in the lane to the right or the left of your vehicle can damage the hood or the windshield. Also regardless of the weather the car windshield, hood, and headlights are clean when you get to your destination. These covers cost about the same as the Guardian. They rollup for storage in a supplied bag. We used one on a Saturn for 7 years and decided to purchase on for our toad 94 Camry recently. We found that the new covers have an improved mechanism for securing the covers around the front doors. Give them a look before you buy the units that mount to the towing equipment. Regards -- Amby N

Tom, Last Fall you posted the message below that included mention of an awning leak. I thought that I had found my leak at the awning wind sensor but in the Tucson rain yesterday it was still leaking. Would you please fill me in on where your leak was as I am having to find a leak which may also be related to awning mounting hardware. See more details below. I spent some time after the rain with the hose on the roof again and think that it is related somehow to the large awning over our passenget side slide out. We have a gutter type extrusion on the roof that the awning is attached to. I pulled a few of the screws and found that water was under the extrusion and seeping into the screw holes. I pulled some more screws, cleaned the holes, and used some GE silicon caulking to fill the holes, put the screws in, and then cover the screws. I also removed some caulking at the end of the extrusion that actually let some water run out from under the extrusion. Unfortunately it rained during the early evening with water still coming in. While laying in bed reading I remembered that some outfits offer some form of RV leak detection but I would like to think that I can find the leak myself. As an engineer I want to know what is causing the problem and many times find that it is a workmanship or poor engineering issue. Any thoughts?? Regards, Amby N.

We have had a leak for a long time around the passenger window of our Expedition that has led to the delamination of the inside plywood from the foam and aluminum wall structure. Over the last couple of weeks I have been eliminating sources of the leak. Recaulking the window including forcing silicon caulk under the flange of the passenger window stopped leaks from the window. But I could not see any components on the roof with bad caulking yet I still had running water on the inside. I was left with two possibilities - the wind sensor on the roof for the electric awning and the Winegard TV antenna mounting. The leak is gone after fully removing the wind sensor and all the old caulking and doing the following - 1. stuffed part of a paper bag in the hole where the sensor wire comes through the roof and then filled will silicon caulk. 2. filled screw holes with silicon and laid down a silicon bead that the sensor base would be placed in when mounted. 3. placed sensor in the silicon bead and aligned the screw holes in the sensor with the screw holes in the roof 4. put silicon in the sensor screw hole cups and then screwed the sensor to the roof 5. filled over screws with silicon and put a good bead of silicon around the base of the sensor using a putty knife to create a smooth filet Note that the A&E wind sensor has a small notch in the base that needs to be filled with caulk. Water testing has confirmed that the wind sensor no longer leaks. This really surprised me since the old caulking had looked good. Now to my question - What can I use as a adhesive to glue the plywood back to the foam where it has delaminated above and around the window on the inside of the coach? I would like to find a spray adhesive if possible that I could put a red WD-40 spray tube on to get it up/into the small space between the plywood and the foam. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Here's an update on what I have done to fix my leaking slide topper. I found a product called VLP on the web. It is a Vinyl Leather repair sealer/glue. It remains somewhat flexible when cured on a vinyl awning. VLP in small tubes for about $4.95 can be found at many Ace Hardware stores. I used two tubes to fill all the holes in a 13' slide topper that is about 18" wide. So far after a couple of rains it is not leaking. But I have not put the slide in as we are in Tucson until early April so I do not know how rolling up the awning will effect the repairs. The awning needs to be cleaned before applying the VLP. I have used armorall on my other toppers to protect them from UVA and UVB. After 5.5 years they look pretty good. Amby N.