Noticed lots of people having trouble with transfer switches on our older fleetwood motorhomes, as am I. I documented the removal and replacement of a transfer switch on mine, so thought some folks might want to take a look at it.
To start with the problem exhibited by my unit was; On shore power, everthing is/was fine. Power throughout the coach, everthing functioned. (This is the default for my transfer switches, they default to shore power.)
The problem start when you fire up the generator. The generator is a 7.5KW Quiet Diesel by Onan. (Unplug from shore power before I try the Genset, also make sure all of the loads are off, such as air conditioners etc, just my way of doing it.) The Generator starts and runs fine, however the transfer switches do not activate and there is no power to the coach.
Now the odd thing is if you identify the two legs of the genset that are in the distribution box under the fridge, it will be making power, 120Volts on each leg You can verify this with a multimeter if you are familar with its operation and comfortable in the presence of 120volts AC
Ok, here's some pics of where my Switches were located and how to get to them.
The powertek distribution box is located under the fridge, we need to remove a couple of screws from the box covers to get to the Guts of the matter.
T
This is what you see when you remove the cover plates. Ok now you have made sure that the Shore Power Cord is disconnected and the generator is not running RIGHT
Next thing is to remove the breaker switches. As you see my hand pull up and back with your fingers in a rotating motion and the breaker will pull free from the breaker plate. Remove all and place them out of the way. They will still be connected to the breaker box by the circuit wires that they control. It is not necessary to remove the circuit wires.
Look at the bottom of the breaker plate and the circuit board plate. You will see phillips head screws. Remove the Breaker plate phillips head screw (only one) on mine. Don't remove the two screws that hold the breaker poles on the screw you want is at the bottom of the plate you can barley see it in the picture. When you remove that you can pull the breaker plate towards you, on mine there were two ears that went through the top of the box to hold it in. Then go over to the circuit board plate and remove the phillips head screws at the top and bottom pull the circuit board to the right, careful not to pull the wires off the board or damage the connectors.
Now, I am big on pictures so I took these to document how the wires were connected to the board just in case. I also made a diagram of what colored wire attached to what post. All are numbered, nice.
You have now exposed the Transfer switches and the time delay relay that is located between them. Note that I have labeled each of the wires on the transfer switch that I planned to replace. The transfer switches are attached to the back of the box by two phillips head screws each. At this point you can run some tests that are located a trouble shooting guide located at this link
ES3030G Trouble Shooting and Repair
Now the rest of the story. After I replaced one of the relays, and running the tests in the above guide I found that the switches including the time delay relay and the switch that I had replaced were all good
Ok, at one time I had removed the inspection plate from the Generator set, thats the little plate located on the left front/top held on with two 10MM bolts (course this applies to the 7.5KW QD). The Terminal block that is located under that cover was heavily corroded. It looked like a battery that had not been taken care of for years. I had cleaned that off as best I could, its a very small space to work in. Some of the screws that held the wires in place were so corroded that they could not be removed.
Ok, that said, I went back to that terminal block determined to remove and replace it. I had a small bakelite terminal block in my amateur radio junk box that would handle five circuits. Sorry I didn't take pictures of that part of my project. So here's a thousand words.
I removed the inspection plate made a diagram of the current block and how the wires were connected. Removed one screw that held the terminal block, the other had corroded away. Removed one of the black wires from the generator side, cut the old terminal from it and spliced a 4 inch piece of wire to the end using a weller 100 watt soldering gun and the joint covered with heat shrink tubing.
This has to be done with each of the wires on the generator side of the terminal block as they are very short. This took about 3 hours as it is a very confined space in which to work, so make sure no one is around you or they might hear some colorful language! Once I completed this task, I installed ring terminals on each of the wires and installed my new terminal block. At around 5:30 in the afternoon, I fired up the generator and was greeted after about 20 seconds with a loud CLICK as the Transfer switches closed and we had generator power to the Coach
I was a very Happy Camper.
Hope this helps someone else, as these things seem to be a problem. Look for me on the road.
Happy Trails
Jim