What did you do to your old RV today?

[ga traveler]

Originally Posted by Greg20d

flipped the breakers did checked fuses ..started gen today and it worked ,,,I did it yesterday and nothing ,,, im losing my mind lol

As a factory trained Onan Tech, I found the #1 reason for this to be the timer circuit in the changeover box. It is supposed to keep the relay in the changeover box from closing for about 1 minute to allow the generator to get up to speed and stabilize. This is easy to check. You can remove the cover at the start button and read voltage on the circuit breaker. If you have voltage on the breaker but not in the coach, it is in the wiring or the changeover box. Most likely the changeover box. We could spend all day going through the different things it could be, but this is the most likely. I have a 1998 Pace Arrow. I have to start my generator a couple of times to get it online. To me it is no big deal. I would rather start a couple of times rather than spend $250.00 for a new box. (YES I am tight.)

[NF6X]

Originally Posted by RM Art

Got pictures??

Why, yes, I do!

[RM Art]

Originally Posted by nf6x

why, yes, i do!

verrry cool!!

[NF6X]

Originally Posted by RM Art

verrry cool!!

From your recent posts here, I can see why you like it!

It’s a magnificent heap of rattles and smells, I tell you what. I hadn’t ever driven any RV before test driving this one, let alone a class A. It felt like leading a loose formation of parts down the road. It looks like there’s all sorts of room in that basement for adding more house batteries, and an AC powered air compressor and retracting hose reel. Someday, it may grow a solar power farm on the roof. It’ll be for my dog Anise and me to take occasional short trips in.

[RM Art]

Originally Posted by NF6X

From your recent posts here, I can see why you like it!

It’s a magnificent heap of rattles and smells, I tell you what. I hadn’t ever driven any RV before test driving this one, let alone a class A. It felt like leading a loose formation of parts down the road. It looks like there’s all sorts of room in that basement for adding more house batteries, and an AC powered air compressor and retracting hose reel. Someday, it may grow a solar power farm on the roof. It’ll be for my dog Anise and me to take occasional short trips in.

Understood!

Our recent purchase of 1996 Tiffin Allegro 25T [having 36K gentle previous miles] is for Linda and me to do several multi thou mile trips visiting family and friends who over decades have spread out all across U.S. Years of fun in the making!

Reason I went so whole hog in mechanical outfitting/improvements is because we don't want to get stuck in some desert area in summer heat!

I have driven plenty of dump trucks, snow plow trucks, front end loaders, backhoes... etc. Often drive my 1 ton Super HD, customized 1985 Chevy 4WD, 8 speed standard shift, std transfer box PU. In comparison... This RV's feel on the road reminds me of what a marshmallow looks like just before it begins to drip over a campfire! LOL

I'm now in process to work on suspension springs and shocks to stiffen her up on the road!

[NF6X]

Originally Posted by RM Art

This RV's feel on the road reminds me of what a marshmallow looks like just before it begins to drip over a campfire!

That's a fantastic description.

[Curtis in TX]

Been rewiring and upgrading a lot of electrical "STUFF" on my 89 Fleetwood Limited during my remodel. Long list!

But today I decided to tackle the 30 year old OEM yellowed plastic headlights.

Was going to polish the old lenses again, but then just decided, just for giggles to see if I could buy new replacements. A few hours of searching while i lazily prepared and ate my lunch, and I found a set of headlight assemblies, with bulbs, for $161.40. That's left and right side! I'll be buying new high output LED 8000 lumen H11 headlight bulbs to go in them after the assemblies show up.

Would you believe it? Fleetwood used 1988 to 1992 Ford Taurus SHO headlight assemblies in their Limited 37J Class A's.

They will be here next week. And while I was at it I bought a new pair of headlight assemblies for my wife's 2006 Toyota 4 Runner (faded too)($141.60 a pair) and the right side headlight assembly [passengers side] for my 2000 Dodge Ram pickup.($46.) Replaced the drivers side a few years ago after an accident broke the original one. So now we will be able to see where we are going finally.

I may not do a lot of night driving in my old Coach, but boy if I do, ya'll will see me coming.

JSYK, The last time I looked for replacement headlight assembles for my Coach, the RV Dealership wanted $360 for each assemblies per side for them. I spent less than that on everything I ordered today.

My new 4 camera dash mounted 9 inch monitor should be here Monday. Cameras are already wired in, plus a toggle to view two more cameras.

Those 2 will be for under the front bumper and one under the back bumper. This way I'll know how close I am to parking curbs and shrubbery stuff under the Coach. ( Once almost back over a cliff that would have put me in a river behind and below my camping spot.)

My old faded lenses!

[sam-3]

I priced some replacements lights at our Ford dealer. Ended up getting the exact same replacement parts at JC Whitney catalog for a lot cheaper.

[Curtis in TX]

Originally Posted by NF6X

I don't have an old RV yet, but I'm getting closer. Today I went and looked at a 1989 Allegro 28' class A from a Craigslist ad. It looks like a neat old rig. A couple of unexpected issues came up while looking at it: The dash A/C didn't want to work, and the refrigerator wouldn't light up on propane. We tried debugging both of those for quite a while. The seller offered to either drop the price accordingly or to spend more time working on it and get back to me..

I've found that if a refrigerator will work on electricity but not propane it's usually one of 2 things. If it's not just slap worn and rusted out.

1: usually if it has sat a long time the propane line needs repriming. If it has propane in the tank.

Or 2: the burner flue is stopped up with debris. Such as mouse nest or mud dobber nest. A coat hanger will unclog it easy enough.

I usually place a section of wadded up metal Window screen in my flu if I'm going to park it for long. I have a check list I go down when I prepare to get mine out of storage and it has a line that says " remove me tall screen from refrigerator flue before turning on refrigerator."

Your dash AC on an old vehicle usually needs new "O" rings and a recharge to get them going again. I suggest the dryer be replaced before recharging.
Ocassionally the compressor inner seal go bad.

I love driving my old bus. It's like sailing a land yatch. It takes some planning, but we'll with the fun for me.

[NF6X]

There’s also possibility number three: None of the four people standing around was smart enough to read the instructions on the front that said to press in the knob until the green light turns on. The seller texted me today with a hearty “DOH!” and pictures of the burner running and a chilly thermometer in the fridge compartment.

The cab A/C compressor clutch didn’t appear to be getting power, so hopefully the cooling loop has not yet had its vital juices depleted.

[RM Art]

Linda and I are now in process of personally making 23 yr. old, 1996, 36K orig. miles, Tiffin Allegro, 25T, P30, great running 454 "Sweetie" more n' more ready for summer fun...

Having couple of days ago gotten her home form complete mechanical going over and many improvements by my decades-favored mechanic shop [that did entire chassis except shocks - that seem OK for now] check ups and replacements: All new hoses and belts, all flushed and new fluids as well as complete tune up, new bearings, brake replacement as needed, grease job, rear duly tires' new air pressure extension nipples, front coil air bag air pressure fill tube extensions for EZ under the hood check ups, rear differential opened/checked/flushed/re-filled... and several other things... Virtually a total comprehensive chassis/power-line/suspension/brake/front and rear end refurbishment detailed outcome. Her 23 yr. old running gear has now been thoroughly serviced back into like new condition! At 36K miles - I feel Sweetie has just been broken in!

I chalk that relatively expensive full-on chassis up-tick to the best "insurance" coverage I can buy! So that dear lil Sweetie does not leave us stranded in New Mexico summer heat when we visit daughter and family in Austin TX. Nor stranded when we visit brother and family and friends in Maine. Nor stranded when we visit son and family in Oregon. Nor stranded when we go to Vegas/Reno to win all her costs back!!!

So... this weekend, in addition to many other items of cleaning, waxing and calk refurbishment/replacement... I plan to do a heavy load test on all her functions regarding shore power, gen set power and propane power. The only one I'm a bit skeptical of is Norcold fridge propane cooling system. Worked when we reviewed the RV before purchase... but yesterday, when opening the exterior vent cover... some items look to have been altered/worked on by not so professional a person. Will clean it all up really good and do tests before I put my seal of approval on it. Have toooo many times read about fires starting due to bad fridge apparatus. Would rather replace entire fridge than take a chance!

Art n' Linda

[ga traveler]

Originally Posted by NF6X

Why, yes, I do!

I would jump on this coach! This is a aluminum Allegro. It is framed in aluminum and clad in aluminum. The front and rear caps are fiberglass, but they are choppered fiberglass not the 1/16 inch layered with wood type. Tiffin stopped with this type of construction because it was so much more expensive than the "western wall". There are two "Opera windows" in the roof of the living room. These "MUST" be keep sealed. Check them for water damage. If they are leaking, it is not a big deal. They are not real hard to repair. Most of these coaches were on a Ford chassis and the gas milage was not great but motorhomes are not known for good gas milage. We were a Allegro dealer and I thought this was a top notch constructed coach. The ceiling was wallpaneling, so there was no problem with the ceiling coming apart like there is with the foam vinyl crap. The paint on the aluminum panels lasted pretty good but the front and rear caps were bad about fading and chalking. The good news is you could clean and wax the caps and if that didnt work you could paint just the caps.

[NF6X]

Thanks for the feedback! The seller texted me that he'd rather knock $500 off the price after wrenching his back working on the cab A/C yesterday. I can't blame him for that! He's taking it in for a smog test on Monday, and hopefully I'll be driving it home before too long.

I don't know how long I'll be pouring money and work into it before it's solid for an uneventful trip. I have an annual vacation at the beginning of May. I'd like to have the Allegro all ready for next year's trip, but I'll rent an RV for this year's one. I know I'll need to do work on both the cab and roof A/C, and I may want to put new tires on it, too ($ouch). This weekend I'm bolting a 30A RV outlet on the side of my house. Regardless of buying the Allegro and whether that all happens before my trip, I'll want it there for plugging in the rental while I'm getting packed up anyway.

Almost all of the original plastic baggage door hold open hooks have broken off, and i think that replacing them will be one of the first things I'll do. I haven't made up my mind yet about using metal versions of the rectangular plastic ones that are on it, or magnetic catches, or just plain old T-shaped stainless steel trailer door hooks.

With the aluminum skin/roof and fiberglass chop end caps, would rubber well nuts work well for mounting things like baggage door hooks, a rear view camera, and even solar panels? I've used them on things like my aluminum-body HMMWV, and I've found them to be easy to use.

I saw Schrader valves on the side panels near the rear wheels, so I assume it has air bags. Would those have been original? It also has electric steps and an HWH hydraulic leveler system (!). I didn't test out the jacks at the seller's place, since I've read stories about them stranding people when they failed while down at a campground. So I figure I'll play with that at home with my tools handy before I try using it.

I'm more about function than form, so I won't mind if my new money pit doesn't look conventionally beautiful. But if some wax makes the end caps look less chalky, then that may be worth the effort. I'm new to all of this RV stuff. I have been lurking on forums like this one and watching lots of YouTube videos about RV stuff for a while, so at least I had an idea of what I was looking at on the Allegro.

I'm probably going to learn how to patch fiberglass eventually, because there's a crunchy hole at a bottom edge of the spare tire hatch. The wood reinforcement at the top of that hatch is also rotten, so I'll be replacing that. The spare is blown, so I plan to put something usable on there before the 100 mile drive home.

I love the little CRT monitor in the dash, but didn't try playing with it. Would that be a television, or just a monitor for a rear view camera (which doesn't appear to be present)? I've considered whether to pull out the TV and fill the hole with ham radio gear, or leave it in and bring along an old TRS-80 Color Computer for maximum silliness. A modern rear view camera with LCD monitor is on my to-do list. I'm debating between rear view only vs. a three camera setup with side cameras. Said list is very long, and it'll probably take years to afford everything on it!

Once I get my RV (almost certainly this Allegro, but if not, something else within the next year or three), I'll start a new thread for it. It's cool to find other Allegro folks here.

[RM Art]

Originally Posted by NF6X

Thanks for the feedback!

Once I get my RV (almost certainly this Allegro, but if not, something else within the next year or three), I'll start a new thread for it.

It's cool to find other Allegro folks here.

Really Nice Ol' Coach - 36K mile, 25'6" 1996 Allegro!

We've had her for a few weeks. Full-on P30 / 454 chassis refurbishment completed this week... by, my decades favorite mechanic shop.....

Now Linda and I are making sure all features are ready to well perform [looks like all is A-OK]... and... all calking refreshed... and... interior cleaned... and... exterior shined... and... stock it up...

And......GOOOOO!.....>>>>>!!!!!!