englishmick
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Re: Breakdown Information
These ground wires/cables seem to be a problem. Can nobody come up with a foolproof solution to this problem,other than the obvious? ie;weld the groundwire permanently to the chassis. or....have a special non corroding form of connection. or............is this already out there & nobodies told me yet!!!!;)501Views0likes0CommentsRe: Breakdown Information
I'm new to Rving,& to the USA,so after being here for 2 months(relocated to 'Vegas from Chester/England) I decided to buy a motorhome. I started looking at under $10k motorhomes,but they were pretty tacky,so we upped our budget to $20k(I've gotta be careful with my money 'till it starts "working" for me!)& still they weren't very acceptable to us. We then went up to $26k & looked at mainly class "A"s in 'Vegas,still not happy with what some owners recon that good conditioncan mean cupboard doors hanging off,generators not kicking in when you go to view,& one had such bad steering/brakes,it shouldn't have even been on the road! Well after a month of looking in the 'Vegas classifieds,& travelling what seemed like hundreds of miles across the city,Dawn was going to a friends house not more than 5 miles from where we live in NW LV,& she saw a nice looking m/home with a for sale sign on it,& a price tag of $15k!!!!!! So we went around to view it,the owner was a very nice guy called Tony who used to work at K-Mart,& was the 2nd owner from new. It's a '93 Frontier Flyer by Damon with 46k mls on the clock,perfect interior,everything works,& the Chevy V8 sounds as sweet as a nut. NOW,here comes the bit you've all been waiting for! Off we go to Utah,Bryce Canyon to be precise,all the way there,no problems,all thro' Bryce,great!,then we park up down a real long lonely track at Red Canyon,& settle down for the night. So I think I'll start the generator so we can watch a bit of TV(or "telly" as we call it in England!) Now we have had the genny running before,so we didn't forsee a problem,& as you will later read,it wasn't the gennies fault. Just as I press the genny starter button,there's a slight "pop" from the dashboard/engine area,& all the lights go out! Nothing,nada,nowt!!!!!! Bloody hell,what're we gonna do now? Start the engine & get back to civilisation!(it's 8pm on a Saturday night) Will the engine start.......................NO!!!!!!!! There's NO power anywhere to anything!!!!!!! Oh dear,break out the candles. I checked everything I could find,fuses,trips,cables from battery to battery,I wiggled,poked & prodded things..........still nothing! Oh well,good job we joined the GOOD SAMS BREAKDOWN SERVICE 2 days ago,we'll give 'em a call in the morning. Along comes a nice guy from Bryce Canyon Towing,has a look,says there's nothing he can do,& puts us on the back of his truck,& takes us back to the garage,& places us by a 110volts mains supply. "There'll be no-one to look at it 'till Monday mornin'" he says. So we plugged in,put on the air con,& phoned around to tell people we'd be a day or so late gettin' back to 'Vegas. Well,our next door neighbour(English spelling!)John says he'll just pop up(250mls)& have a look for us(he used to own a garage in Cal;) So he gets up there 4hrs later & we talk things thro',& he says well lets listen to if there's any clicking from the battery(flat batt; symptom)................ Guess what,IT STARTED!!!!!!!!! He was somewhat dismayed at this as you can imagine,as he had not only travelled all that way,but he wanted to find a fault & repair it. So we both go to fill up at a gas station just in front of the garage,& when I come to start it again......IT WON"T...start that is! So he now has a chance to put his mechanical skills to the test,& within 5 minutes he's found it......... ...........A FAULTY GROUND....................... It seems it only started before because it had just come of a mains supply & that had 'warmed it up' a bit,but as soon as there was a hint of a load on the system,nothing! So he used his jump leads not only to test the battery output to the starter solenoid etc;,but also as a temporary ground lead to get us back to sunny 'Vegas. 1st of all many many thanks to the best neighbor(Yank spelling)in the world,but also to Sams Club Breakdown Services. & the last word to you all out there is................... ..........maintain your vehicle,I know there's always the unexpected(fuel pumps etc;),but if I'd been more aware of my new vehicle,maybe I would have spent a bit more time gettin' a bit of dirt under my fingernails! Happy & safe RVing you guys! Mick'n'Dawn Moores.499Views0likes0Comments
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