looking for owners of 2004-2005 Pace Arrows

Thanks Jim,
If that goes the car would go anywhere and would not stop until it hits something. The hitch receiver, safety chains and break away switch would go with the car.

IMPORTANT!!! Potentially serious safety issue

I suggest you crawl underneath the back of your coach and check how well the hitch receiver is attached to the chassis frame. Do it before you tow your car again!

On my coach I discovered several broken welds and at least one loose bolt.

I took my coach to a welding shop yesterday. The welder was stunned at Fleetwood’s poor design and shoddy workmanship. He was unwilling to simply repair the broken welds; he convinced me that the original work needs to be removed and replaced with much stronger material and attached more securely.

So, crawl under the back and check your rig. Look for broken or missing welds where the hitch receiver is connected to the frame. Check the bolts to make sure none of them are loose. Look for bent metal, and other indications of stress. If anything looks weak or stressed, stop towing and get it repaired. Don’t risk having your toad break loose from your coach. The consequences could be disastrous.

Welcome to the thread!

Hi all
My husband and I are the proud new (2nd) owners of a 2004 Pace Arrow 37C. It only had 11k miles on it, so barely used! Thank you for all the great posts here.....Ive already noted several things that will help us....

Christy and Mike

When I get a chance, I'll take a pic of my setup and send it to you...only way to get to the bottom of this thing...LOL

Lobstah... funny you should mention the location just above the propane tank. This is where I mounted my Inverter. I put it there because it's close to the batteries under the stairs, which is important so the heavy cables are as short as possible.

Although we don't boondock as much as we used to, I installed my inverter and solar panels for this reason. We did use the generator when we wanted to run the microwave or oven (convection model) during our boondocking, but to me the main pro/con is the inverter is a heck of a lot quieter. We pretty much keep the inverter turned on all the time. If we have a power failure, we don't lose anything. The inverter also keeps things operating while driving down the highway. Best part about this is during long runs the refrig runs on electricity rather then propane, and I don't worry about forgetting to turn off the propane when I fuel up.

Pretty certain mine is stock. The only thing that remotely resembles an inverter is located directly above my horizontal propane tank that sits just forward of the entry on the passenger side, between the door and the wheel well.
Other indication is that in order to turn the microwave on while underway, I have to start the genset. We had a 34' boat years ago, and the pros/cons of inverters vs. gensets was always a topic of debate between boaters. Most opted for inverters due to the costs being lower than a genset.

Jim

Lobstah wrote:
Thanks for the excellent info regarding batteries and how they're connected. This is the first I've heard of replacing the inverter, and frankly, not sure how I'd know if the one in there now is factory installed or not. Is there an easy way to tell?

Depending on which model Pace Arrow you have the factory CONVERTER is usually mounted somewhere out of the way. On my 36B it's mounted under the sink in the bathroom area. This places it close to the circuit breaker panel, which is another hint on where it might be. In any case Fleetwood doesn't, or at least didn't, install Inverter/Chargers in their Class A Gas motorhomes. They all had Converters only. So if an after-market inverter was installed by a previous owner, then it's probably mounted outside in one of the storage bays, usually close to the batteries. The inverters are typically larger and heavier then converters. Also, they usually have a control panel mounted inside allowing the owner to monitor the inverter and batteries. So, if you don't have any of this then you most likely still have the stock converter.

Can't see the pics, but I'll be looking into this soon, as we're planning on buying a dolly this spring to tow our 99 S10 Blazer.

Jim

PCOB... I have a 2004 36B which should be identical to yours. I have the Ultraguard attached under the back. I'm included the following photo so you can see how I attached mine.



I drilled the two holes in the rear skid frames and used turn-buckles to attach to eye bolts to the angle iron frame I purchased with the mud flap. I did this in Jan of 2005 and have never had a problem with it.