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Old 01-18-2015, 09:40 AM   #1
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Winnebago 38J hot water heater

Help! The electric heat element on my 38j adventure is not working. I read up on the Atwood HW heater and see that the element is in the rear, however the issue is getting to it and only a 38J owner will appreciate this problem. I removed the side panel and can see the wires down at the bottom amongst the styrofoam however there is no room between the back of the tank and the cabinet to do much of anything. So the question is, what is the trick for changing the electric element?thanx. len
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Old 01-18-2015, 12:39 PM   #2
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My 38R is very similar to your 38J.

I have an access panel under and to the rear of my water heater. It's a large (~4"x10") rubber plug.

Look underneath your motorhome for this rubber access plug.

-Tom, W3TLN
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Old 01-21-2015, 04:43 PM   #3
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Hey Len ... don't run out to buy a new element until you get at the black plastic cover over the wire connections at the back of the water heater.
My electic heater quit too and it turned out to be the black (load) wire connection inside the cover ... fried!! (lucky it didn't cause a fire!) Anyway, i learned that the electic element is a screw-in not a bolt-in as shown in the manual.
Not to hijack this thread but can anyone tell me why this happened ... the 120 volt (14-2) black wire is connected by a twist-on connecter to the black 14 guage wire that runs to the relay and on to the element. I cut the wires back, removing the damaged portion and reconnected them with a new twist-on wire connecter.
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Old 01-21-2015, 05:27 PM   #4
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Call Atwood; they were very helpful. There is a little fuse type wire (fuse-able link?) that was the problem. They sent me 2!
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Old 01-21-2015, 06:47 PM   #5
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Usually, burned wires are the result of loose connections. Screw-on wire nuts are a poor choice for wiring in an RV.
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Old 01-22-2015, 06:56 AM   #6
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As others have mentioned, don't just change the element without first doing some diagnosis. There could be several reasons the water heater doesn't work. The fusible link and burned wire are 2 possibilities. Another is the thermal cut off. It's a little switch at the rear of the heater that's supposed to open and shut down the heater if the temperature goes above 140*. Sometimes they fail due to all the vibration of pounding down the road. The switch is resettable by just depressing the red tab.


Over time the thermal cut off switch becomes more prone to tripping due to repeated heating cycles and road vibration. We had to replace the one in our 2001 Adventurer. Here's a guide on how to diagnose many of the more common problems on the Atwood water heaters.


http://beamalarm.com/Documents/atwoo...eshooting.html

As a side note if you check the fusible link be sure either use a meter or unplug it and remove it from the water heater. Many times the internal wire will melt, but the rubber casing will stay intact.
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Old 01-22-2015, 08:34 AM   #7
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thanx for the replys. Yes, the Atwood site is quite helpful, however my issue is with Winnebago for the cabinet design. I checked the thermal kick-out, removed the fuseable link and ran a continuity check, have 110 at the heat element, can hear the thermostat click when the electric switch is turned on. The 38j has a side panel to access the water heater. Problem is there is no room between the back of the water heater and the back of the cabinet to work or remove the heat element. The only thing I can gather is that the unit needs to be slid forward in order to replace the element. Unfortunately this means disconnecting the water, gas, and electric in addition to draining the water.
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Old 01-22-2015, 08:43 AM   #8
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Loosen your element first before draining the tank, it will help with hold the tank with the added weight to break loose the connection. After you loosen it then drain the tank.
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Old 01-22-2015, 08:49 AM   #9
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Yes, you need to slide the water heater out a ways. This can be done without disconnecting the water lines.
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Old 01-22-2015, 09:02 AM   #10
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Since the water heater doesn't need any "scheduled maintenance" it's put in a cabinet only minimally larger than the unit itself. It's difficult to remove, but in most cases it never needs to be accessed. Our 2001 Adventurer had a similar setup (haven't even looked at our 2013), but in over 12 years and over 100,000 miles it only had to be removed once. There wasn't any problem with the water heater, but rather the coach heater behind it.


Most people would rather have larger storage cabinets than have the space wasted on an oversized cabinet for the water heater which in all likelihood will never be necessary.
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