We're being tested!

[MSHappyCampers]

We are planning to try a year of fulltiming soon and I think Somebody up there is trying to see if we're ready!

We left last Wednesday for a short trip down to the coast to visit the relatives. We were running late and got it too much of a hurry! We didn't use the checklist (which we NEVER fail to do). We had hooked up the car the night before to save time. We pulled out and got about a mile down the road when this pickup came racing up behind us, passed us, then came to a dead stop in front of us! I had a few words for him before I saw it was our neighbor! I got out of the MH and he pointed to the rear of the MH. There was our power cord stretched out like a tail 25' behind us! It had gotten under the toad tires and was torn to shreds!

It was obviously not usable at all, so we had to make a choice, either call off the trip or continue and operate on generator the entire 5 days. We decided we didn't want to unload that sucker, so we kept on trucking! I ordered a new 40' 50-amp power cord to the tune of $289 and will be installing it this week!

The CG where we had made reservations would not let us run the genny all night, so we had to stay at the Wal-Mart campground. We were sitting there watching TV when we heard a loud noise. Water was flowing from under the shower stall! We turned off the pump to stop the water and I went out to search for the problem. The fitting on the PEX tubing that connected to the tub faucets had broken off!

There was not place open that time of night to get a fitting so we were without water! We found a spigot and filled a gallon jug with water to flush the toilet. Annette has already taken a bath but I was really sweaty from crawling around under there in 90% humidity looking for the water problem. I'm gonna pass along a little tip to you, no charge! You CAN take a bath with a wet-wipe if necessary! The next morning I found a hardware with exactly the part I needed and had the problem fixed in 15 minutes!

The final test was the fridge. The outside fans quit working and the temp inside the fridge got up to 48 degrees! We had to go to Wal-Mart and buy a cooler and 20 lbs of ice to keep everything from spoiling!

I'm happy to report that we did not lose our cool through the whole ordeal! After that trip, I think we're ready for anything! Are you listening Lord? WE PASSED THE TEST!

[topdownman]

I've done the power cord trick before. It's rather embarrasing.

[Firebug5]

Hello, Joe! You guys are one of our favorite posters, we read as many of your posts as we can. Just a guess, you already passed "the test" a long, long time ago! Glad to see several little bumps in the road do not even phase folks such as yourselves. I imagine lots of folks would have responded differently, probably even simply turned around and gone back home.

Bruce and Judy

[road dogs]

I haven't done the power cord thing ...yet..., but one time we were coast-to-coasting, pulling our 5th wheel through Ohio and I noticed the brakes seemed like they weren't working right, looked down at the brake controller and the display was lit up RED! Found out the too-long trailer hookup cable had been dragging and got ground in half. Luckily I had all the tools with me to fix it in a handy shopping center parking lot. Then there was the time I forgot to fold the steps back up during a roadside quick stop. THAT was a job to replace but at least I was able to upgrade the original unergonomic steps with much better ones......

[TonyDi]

Joe. Because everything comes in threes and you've had your three, albeit all at once. I think you are good to go.

[dempen]

Since we are sharing stories, here's mine. My wife, 2 kids and 2 dogs are not full timers, but I convinced her to buy a motorhome last December so as a family we could tour the US. I've never been out of the Midwest, so wanted to see all the wonderful National parks and create some memories!
I checked the motorhome over in March, before our first trip to Branson, MO. Changed all fluids, put steering stabilizer and rear track bar on. Added tire pressure sensors and inspected brakes and everything else that I could. I did notice that it was missing the oil fill cap, but didn't think too much about it, just bought a new one and put it on.
Branson trip was great, no issues, family and dogs loved it. Did 3 more trips to Rock Cut State Park, Lake Geneva, and Rock Island KOA, again, no issues.
Now for the big trip to Orlando, Fl, for all the parks. Split the trip up into 2 days, no issue the first day, but 2nd day, 90 miles further to go, my low oil pressure indicator came on. I was already exiting to get gas, so I continued to the Petro and filled her up and idled to the back lot, where I used Coach Net to arrange a mobile tech. 5 hours later, I had a new oil sending sensor installed and with oil pressure reading normal again, I set out for the last 90 miles.
I got all but 10 miles away from Fort Wildnerness and the pressure dropped again. At this point, it's 9:30, raining, and since there is no abnormal noise coming from the engine, I decided to just keep driving. We made it!
Since it happened again, I decided to call a Ford dealer and get it looked at the next day, Monday. I called them, and they felt that since the engine wasn't ticking/knocking, to just drive it the 20 miles so they could look at it.
I started the drive and after 10 miles, with low oil pressure, the engine started knocking. I made it all but one mile before it locked up. Luckily, after sitting 2 hours waiting for Coach Net to find a tow, the Florida road side assistance pick up towed me out of traffic and all the way to the dealer!
So what was the root cause? Remember that missing oil cap? Well, nuts were found in my oil pan and the nut casings blocked the oil pickup.

[macantic]

Originally Posted by dempen

Since we are sharing stories, here's mine. My wife, 2 kids and 2 dogs are not full timers, but I convinced her to buy a motorhome last December so as a family we could tour the US. I've never been out of the Midwest, so wanted to see all the wonderful National parks and create some memories!
I checked the motorhome over in March, before our first trip to Branson, MO. Changed all fluids, put steering stabilizer and rear track bar on. Added tire pressure sensors and inspected brakes and everything else that I could. I did notice that it was missing the oil fill cap, but didn't think too much about it, just bought a new one and put it on.
Branson trip was great, no issues, family and dogs loved it. Did 3 more trips to Rock Cut State Park, Lake Geneva, and Rock Island KOA, again, no issues.
Now for the big trip to Orlando, Fl, for all the parks. Split the trip up into 2 days, no issue the first day, but 2nd day, 90 miles further to go, my low oil pressure indicator came on. I was already exiting to get gas, so I continued to the Petro and filled her up and idled to the back lot, where I used Coach Net to arrange a mobile tech. 5 hours later, I had a new oil sending sensor installed and with oil pressure reading normal again, I set out for the last 90 miles.
I got all but 10 miles away from Fort Wildnerness and the pressure dropped again. At this point, it's 9:30, raining, and since there is no abnormal noise coming from the engine, I decided to just keep driving. We made it!
Since it happened again, I decided to call a Ford dealer and get it looked at the next day, Monday. I called them, and they felt that since the engine wasn't ticking/knocking, to just drive it the 20 miles so they could look at it.
I started the drive and after 10 miles, with low oil pressure, the engine started knocking. I made it all but one mile before it locked up. Luckily, after sitting 2 hours waiting for Coach Net to find a tow, the Florida road side assistance pick up towed me out of traffic and all the way to the dealer!
So what was the root cause? Remember that missing oil cap? Well, nuts were found in my oil pan and the nut casings blocked the oil pickup.
Attachment 73976Attachment 73979

OUCH!! I bet that was expensive.

[MSHappyCampers]

Originally Posted by dempen

Since we are sharing stories, here's mine. My wife, 2 kids and 2 dogs are not full timers, but I convinced her to buy a motorhome last December so as a family we could tour the US. I've never been out of the Midwest, so wanted to see all the wonderful National parks and create some memories!
I checked the motorhome over in March, before our first trip to Branson, MO. Changed all fluids, put steering stabilizer and rear track bar on. Added tire pressure sensors and inspected brakes and everything else that I could. I did notice that it was missing the oil fill cap, but didn't think too much about it, just bought a new one and put it on.
Branson trip was great, no issues, family and dogs loved it. Did 3 more trips to Rock Cut State Park, Lake Geneva, and Rock Island KOA, again, no issues.
Now for the big trip to Orlando, Fl, for all the parks. Split the trip up into 2 days, no issue the first day, but 2nd day, 90 miles further to go, my low oil pressure indicator came on. I was already exiting to get gas, so I continued to the Petro and filled her up and idled to the back lot, where I used Coach Net to arrange a mobile tech. 5 hours later, I had a new oil sending sensor installed and with oil pressure reading normal again, I set out for the last 90 miles.
I got all but 10 miles away from Fort Wildnerness and the pressure dropped again. At this point, it's 9:30, raining, and since there is no abnormal noise coming from the engine, I decided to just keep driving. We made it!
Since it happened again, I decided to call a Ford dealer and get it looked at the next day, Monday. I called them, and they felt that since the engine wasn't ticking/knocking, to just drive it the 20 miles so they could look at it.
I started the drive and after 10 miles, with low oil pressure, the engine started knocking. I made it all but one mile before it locked up. Luckily, after sitting 2 hours waiting for Coach Net to find a tow, the Florida road side assistance pick up towed me out of traffic and all the way to the dealer!
So what was the root cause? Remember that missing oil cap? Well, nuts were found in my oil pan and the nut casings blocked the oil pickup.
Attachment 73976Attachment 73979

That hurts!

[Fred1609]

We got back from a short trip yesterday...our first trip of the summer because of a leg injury .... I was reading through Joe's story and I jumped up and ran outside and plugged the rig in....We parked it at home late afternoon and I forgot to plug in....Thanks for reminding me Joe....you passed the test.

[macantic]

Originally Posted by MSHappyCampers

We are planning to try a year of fulltiming soon and I think Somebody up there is trying to see if we're ready!

We left last Wednesday for a short trip down to the coast to visit the relatives. We were running late and got it too much of a hurry! We didn't use the checklist (which we NEVER fail to do). We had hooked up the car the night before to save time. We pulled out and got about a mile down the road when this pickup came racing up behind us, passed us, then came to a dead stop in front of us! I had a few words for him before I saw it was our neighbor! I got out of the MH and he pointed to the rear of the MH. There was our power cord stretched out like a tail 25' behind us! It had gotten under the toad tires and was torn to shreds!

It was obviously not usable at all, so we had to make a choice, either call off the trip or continue and operate on generator the entire 5 days. We decided we didn't want to unload that sucker, so we kept on trucking! I ordered a new 40' 50-amp power cord to the tune of $289 and will be installing it this week!

The CG where we had made reservations would not let us run the genny all night, so we had to stay at the Wal-Mart campground. We were sitting there watching TV when we heard a loud noise. Water was flowing from under the shower stall! We turned off the pump to stop the water and I went out to search for the problem. The fitting on the PEX tubing that connected to the tub faucets had broken off!

There was not place open that time of night to get a fitting so we were without water! We found a spigot and filled a gallon jug with water to flush the toilet. Annette has already taken a bath but I was really sweaty from crawling around under there in 90% humidity looking for the water problem. I'm gonna pass along a little tip to you, no charge! You CAN take a bath with a wet-wipe if necessary! The next morning I found a hardware with exactly the part I needed and had the problem fixed in 15 minutes!

The final test was the fridge. The outside fans quit working and the temp inside the fridge got up to 48 degrees! We had to go to Wal-Mart and buy a cooler and 20 lbs of ice to keep everything from spoiling!

I'm happy to report that we did not lose our cool through the whole ordeal! After that trip, I think we're ready for anything! Are you listening Lord? WE PASSED THE TEST!

It's like I said to my last campground neighbor that told me about something stupid he did,I told him it just goes to show that no matter how long or how well seasoned you are at RVing,sooner or later you do something stupid.

[MSHappyCampers]

Originally Posted by macantic

It's like I said to my last campground neighbor that told me about something stupid he did,I told him it just goes to show that no matter how long or how well seasoned you are at RVing,sooner or later you do something stupid.

You nailed that one for sure!

[Dr4Film]

Joe,

I almost did the same thing back in 2012 at a Motorcoach Resort in Everglades City Florida. Thankfully, I looked in my left mirror just as the electric cord was taunt enough to snap off my electric cord cover and was just about to take out the custom pedestal which are priced well over $1000 dollars each.

I picked up the cover to look at it later, wound the cord in after disconnecting it and left.

So, we both failed the last and very most important part of any departure: a thorough walk-around the coach to look at everything, awnings, slides, compartment doors, cords, hoses, ride height, check lights, etc.

It has never happened again as I ALWAYS do my walk-around with the engine running PRIOR to moving the coach one inch.

Regarding the other stuff that happened, well that can happen to anyone anytime. You dealt with it logically and sensibly.

Like I said in other posts that I have contributed to regarding the NotSoCold, once you finally get thoroughly fed up with the lousy performance of it, out the door it will go and into a landfill. A residential is the only way to go especially if you are contemplating Full-Time RVing for any length of time.

The Samsung RF197 has improved our RV Lifestyle 1000%.

Dr4Film ----- Richard

[wa8yxm]

Done the power cord thing 1.5 times (one time I unplugged it from the MH but left it sitting in my back yard)

The other time.. Well I got lucky.. I used to use a 1 foot cord with a 50 amp Marinco outlet (Connects to the inlet on the motor home) and a TT-30 plug This was both adapter and adapter.. Then I used a TT-30 extension cord.. Well....

Over time the plug and outlet got kind of bad.. I replaced both the plug on the TT-30 Extension but just spliced the short adapter cord to the other end of the Extension So now I have both a 30 amp and a 50 amp shore cord, the 30 is a superflex (Does not get stiff in cold weather) Very nice.

The splice broke.. So when I returned to the site later in the day.. All I had to do was re-splice.

[micd]

Congruatulations on passing the test! You did very well. A couple of tips.

Get an extra pex shut off valve. Something like this.
Shut-Off Valve, 1/2" CTS - RVWholesalers.com RV Parts and Accessories

That way when you have a leak you can install it on the line and shut off the water to that thing (in your case the shower, in our case the toilet) and still use the water in the rest of the RV.

Another useful thing is the flexible freezer packs. We have saved the ones that come with shipped cold items in our freezer. When we leave for a trip, because our driveway isn't level, I put them on and in between the items in the fridge to keep things cold until the fridge catches up.

After the fridge is cold I move them up to the freezer. Then they are refrozen until I need them again which is often at a sight seeing site or a hiking spot where we have parked and it isn't level and thus not safe to run the fridge. I turn off the fridge, move some of the freezer packs down (depending if I have anything in the freezer, I don't I move them all down) and it keeps everything cold until I can run it again. Also works when your fridge acts up. The fridge box is really well insulated so you don't need a cooler.

The freezer packs are also very useful if you get injured!