Your wisdom - please!

[Thom1961]

Hello All,

As a new member, this is my first posting to the group. I need your collective wisdom, please!

I am now the proud owner of a new-to-me 2000 Fleetwood Bounder 34D that has just over 50,000 miles on a Ford Triton V-10. I recently purchased this coach from a small family owned dealer in Michigan and drove it back to my home in Minnesota over 900 miles. It drove quite nice and I didn't have any appreciable issues. The engine purred along with ease and the transmission shifted up and down flawlessly as asked.

Since then an issue has come up I need help to figure out what is going on, so am hoping someone might steer me in the right direction. If someone can give me a good idea what the problem might be, it could potentially save me some money in repair.

In attempting to take the motorhome west on my annual trip to California, I started out and after driving 50-60 miles in the rain, I began to experience a "jerk" or "halt" that appeared to be random. There were no unusual vibrations, squeals or abnormal sounds. It didn't appear to involve the engine or transmission, but perhaps something in the drive train? No trouble light ever came on. It would only last for a split second (literally) when occurring. There was no change in the tachometer or speedometer, when it happened, it was not shifting up or down and occurred on level roads at highway speeds. It happened both in overdrive and when manually taken out of overdrive. Wondering what was happening, I took it to a semi-truck repair shop and they couldn't really find anything. U-joints all appeared tight, There was no leaking of fluid at the differential, and when checked the fluid was clear and clean. There was on the Right rear axle some moisture, but it was not weeping. The mechanic looking at it only suggested a possible bearing/seal going out on that right rear. He had no other suggestions.

I then drove the coach home the 150 miles I had traveled and the same thing occurred several times again, randomly, but was able to get home without further issues. Any ideas, please? Has anyone experienced this as well?

Thank you,
Thomas Reynolds

[ddndoug]

Moisture will cause a bad coil to arc to ground much easier. If it was an electrical miss it can feel like the symptoms your describing, sometimes they will set a code in your computer and sometimes they won't.

Doug

[Thom1961]

Thank you for the suggestions thus far. It was only light rain that day, and it rained both on the outbound trip and the return trip back to the house, so I didn't get to drive it without rain, and left for CA in my truck the next day to make the trip and just returned a couple days ago. Time to check things out further.

[wolfe10]

Indeed, pull and check the air filter before driving further. If damaged, you can do engine damage!

There was a fix that prevented water from being driven into the stock air cleaner.

[happy-2]

I would Also use some Seafome or stable in the gas tank and run it through the Genarator to help keep water out of the gas.And when you fuel up and park it for awhile put a bottle of Stable in the tank,run the gen till you get home and parkit.

[Dutch_12078]

It may have been sucking water into the air filter, a known problem with the earlier F53/V10 chassis. Ford issued a "snorkel" kit fix for the problem, but I don't think they're available any longer. I had a similar problem with our 2001 F53/V10 in a heavy rain. A quick air filter change and a let up in the rain got us to our destination with no further issues, but the filter I had removed was soaked. I cobbed up a 3" aluminum dryer hose extending from the bottom filter inlet to above the filter housing as a more permanent fix. Haven't had any problems in the two years and many wet miles since then.

[happy-2]

AFTER YOU GOT OUT OF THR RAIN DID THE PROBLEM CONTINUE? If so you mite check your Air cleaner and see if its getting wet from the rain.I believe there was a modification for the Air cleaner so as to not let water get in.Id make a shroud to block the water.

[ScottG]

Has the fuel filter been replaced? If not then it's time.