Strange Problem
 

So, my last trip coming home from a short 400 mile trip from New Mexico to Phoenix AZ. I had the generator running the entire time to keep the ACs running. I was about 200 miles in to my trip when my dash stereo stopped working. I looked over at the USB port that I installed that has a voltage indicator. It was flashing at 5.6V! I wasn't sure what to do so, I turned off the generator and all of the sudden my dash stereo came back on and the voltage indicator went back to 12.6V. I started the generator and continued my trip with no problems.

Summer 6 week trip; 1) toilet valve spring broke - quick ordered replacement (and spare) from Amazon. 2) Door knob to bathroom broke - new residential one from ACE Hardware. 3) Dash air quit working on way home - dealer found leak, repaired and recharged. 4) Leaving Ohio campground after being parked for 6 weeks, rear camera no longer worked (there had been a lot of heavy rain while we were there. Got back to Arizona and after it sat for several days, all is now good. I did check the camera and taped the connector. Also found a clearance marker lamp above the camera was loose, so resealed (it might have allowed water behind rear cap down onto camera hookup.

Most recent shorter trip, all worked well except once home, generator would not start. After fooling with it and shutting off the breaker, got it to start. Then it would not produce any output. More fooling around and got it to work. Had a fault code 19, "governor's actuator circuit is open or shorted during the attempt to start generator". 2 things to try to correct condition, disconnect 12volt positive to generator for 15 minutes to let system reset, check connector to control board for coming loose. If neither of these then probably control. Never got around to doing either of these as unit is now working correctly. Will check again today. Most likely cause is I would shut it down under load while driving, which is a no-no. Lesson learned.

Into month 5 of 6 month summer fun trip....
1), Water pump quit on day one of our trip, was able to get it working a few days later
2). Brand new $1800 front A/C unit crapped out, only 6 mos. old and only in service about 3 of those months, unable to get replaced for months due to short supply; unit is simply not available
3) Power cord and camco surge protector tried to melt down and fuse at the connectors; had to have an emergency replacement of entire power cord reel...big $$$
4). Our generator has now crapped out, been diagnosed ass a bad power control board. Generator only has 500 hours on it, the board is $970, out of warranty of course.....

Oh! And we're not even home yet!!!!!!

Since I last wrote about my toilet flush valve leaking, today, my drivers side power mirror is dead, and my refrigerator outlet keeps popping it’s breaker when running on Gen power! Go figure! But it stopped doing it?

What Broke?
 

My first rv was a 1973 Dodge Tioga. It only had a 340. Maaan did that thing break often. The Green Machine. Lol

Alternator quit on one trip. Overnight in a hotel. Hot a/f. Mysterious odours that we finally traced to a mouldy carpet.
Leaky roof. Furnace thermocouple failed. Plumbing and water pump issues. Electical and battery problems. Failed water pump. Failed fridge, discovered the night before we were leaving. These are the ones that come to mind, I'm sure there were more. No a/c. I mean there wasn't one. The floor on that class c got sooo hot. Took hours to cool down once we arrived at out destination.

Final straw, went out in the spring to get ready for the coming season, the whole roof that was glued over the old one had totally fell off. That was of course after I had fixed the water pump. Should have gone inside before I started that repair. Went to start it up after having a new muffler put on, the float bowl would always flood the engine when warm. This time there was a huge boom, left a stain in my jeans.... Dam muffler blew right apart. I parked that sucker, it never made another trip.

We had some great times in it though. A real learning experience for us.

Ill never forget the time we were crawling up a river hill, that 340 working its butt off, a gravel truck went past us in the passing lane and laid on his air horn, just as he was beside us. Scared the crap out of my wife. I can still hear that scream. Lol.

Good times.

Room with a view
 

Went on vacation in August with our new to us motorhome. Our first stop was at my in-laws to drop off our cats. While there I looked over the motorhome including the roof to make sure everything was good. All was well. We arrived at that night's destination and settled in. The next morning my daughter was the first to use the bathroom. She comes out and ask what happened to the skylight over the shower. I walk in and sure enough the skylight is completely gone! I climb on the roof and look for other damage but found none. Apparently the skylight was brittle enough that the wind driving down the highway broke it apart. Needing something to cover the opening for the trip we run across the street to the Dollar General and buy a storage tote that's big enough to fit over the opening. Luckily I had brought screws and a screw gun "just in case" 😜

Went on vacation at the end of August from FL to upstate NY got an hour away from home at 11:00 PM and the 8.1 Chevy started spitting, sputtering and back firing. Found a place to pull off and rest until morning and took the toad to get some plugs and wires, changed those out and cleaned the MAF sensor while I was at it and away we went. Got upstate as planned.

Two days later the generator decided to have issues. Of course staying in a campground with no hookups so needed the generator a couple hours a day to charge the batteries. So I with help of some family pull the generator out of the motorhome and find the bearing on the belt end of the stator disintegrated. I was able to get the bearing at an auto parts store about an hour away after getting the part number. New bearing installed and generator back in motorhome just in time for generator hour ending. But all was good with the generator anyway.

So 3 days before leaving decide to drive up the road to get some firewood and my brother says what is that leaking under your Jeep. So I take a look and see I have a fuel leak on the Jeep. What are the odds. So we head back to the campground and take a closer look to find that the fuel filter has a hairline crack in it. So I get on the phone and start calling to locate a fuel filter which I find about and hour and a half away. My brother looks at me and says you going to go that far to get it and I say yes its not going to cost me anymore and by the way I need you to take me. After dark that night fuel filter installed and all is well. Trip home was uneventful. These are the trips you remember.

Our kids…

Wife and I got away for a 4 day trip to 1,000 islands in NY while grandma stayed with the kids. Start of the second day all 3 kids were sick with cough and congestion and we had to pack up and head home to get them Covid tested before they could return to school. All were negative. We had the perfect spots and perfect weather.

Great question!

Fixing broke stuff is part of RVing.... part of the fun.

We went from FL to OR, from OR to UT, and from UT to TN. We go back to FL in mid-November.

So far, the motorhome oil plug leaked, the pan was stripped. We had an insert put in and changed to a Femco Plug. ($600 parts and labor.) The kitchen slide proximity switch wiring needed to be re-crimped. (my labor) The rear suspension ride height bracket broke. ($42 for the parts, my labor.) When the bracket broke, the air was dumped out of the suspension. The frame came down and touched the rear. The wire for the speed sensor got smashed which caused an ABS Fault. I soldered the wires back together. The bathroom fan needs the motor that opens the lid. There is a sticking relay in the turn signal circuit, and the new windshield is leaking. Those things will wait until I get back to FL. Overall, it's been a great trip.

-B

What broke on your last RV Trip
 

It wasn't my last trip but it is worth mentioning. A few years ago we were heading across the country. I have a 2003 Bounder on a Workhorse W22 chassis. We were going up the mountain from Denver and I noticed I didn't hear the fan kick in as the temperature rose Soon the engine was spitting out steam. There was no place to pull over. I slowed down and managed to get to the top where we took the first exit. The engine fan never engaged on the way up leading me to think I had a failed fan clutch. I knew the belt was okay because the power steering and brakes still worked. I got her cooled down and we spent the night there. During the night I took the toad on a recon mission to see what mountains lay ahead. The next morning I had my wife drive the toad and I drove the motorhome. No problem as I kept the speed down. When we got to Grand Junction I found a parts house and tried to get a new fan clutch. Of course they didn't have a listing for a Workhorse so I bought one for a Surburban. Since the mountains were behind us I elected to continue without changing the fan clutch. As I was crossing the desert in Utah she overheated again. I found a campground "sorta" and pulled in. I was the only one there beside the resident who ran the place. I asked if I could work on the RV and he said okay. I jacked up the front of the Bounder in 115 degree heat and tried to remove the fan clutch. When I tried to get the fan shroud off I discovered it was a one piece type and I couldn't get it off without taking the fan off. I then discovered that I needed a special tool to remove the huge nut holding the fan clutch on. I drove 40 miles to Moab in the toad and rented the tool. When I got the fan off and the shroud came down. It literally fell down I discovered that the shroud had a big hole in the top where the fan had hit it. It was then that I realized that my problem wasn't the fan clutch. I called Larry Dodd at Larry's Auto repair in Myrtle Beach SC "an authorized Workhorse service center" and asked Larry if he could send me a new shroud. I had known Larry for several years. He said the shroud was supposed to be a two piece part so you could put the top on and then the bottom with the fan in place. He sent me the two parts which in itself was an endeavor since we had to go back to Moab to pick them up. While we were waiting we did some exploring. When I got the two parts I found that I had to take a lot off the top of the radiator to mount the top piece. Eventually I got it all together and we proceeded on our journey with the old "working" fan clutch. I forgot to mention that getting that fan clutch off to get the old shroud off was a day's work by itself. I will forever be greatful to Larry's Auto Repair and my friend Larry Dodd for walking me through this repair. By the way I figured out why the fan shroud came loose. I had thrown a fan belt on a previous trip and that belt hit the shroud knocking it off the clips at the top.

All kinds of interesting stories here. Mine is trivial compared to a lot but I will add it to thread, it may even help someone down the road.
Our last trip was a 3 week long trip(and first with the new to us motorhome) to the north west coast of BC. Our first night we didn't have any spot booked to camp and drove a little longer then we wanted into the night. Notice my dash lights weren't working so I pulled into frontage road in a small town to have a look because I was sure my tail lights were on the same circuit. There was a pretty good size pothole getting on the frontage road and when I went back to check the tail lights I noticed both safety cables had got knocked off going through the pothole. Put those back on and starting looking for the fuse box in the rv. After looking everywhere I could think of I finally decided to pull out the storage rack between the seats and sure enough there it was. Found the bad fuse changed it and back on the road.
Ended up staying in a rest area not far up the road for the night and the next day the rv didn't want to start( took 4 or 5 times the previous night after fixing the fuse issue as well) hooked up the booster cables from the Jeep and fire right up. Ok got a fix for that and will look at when I get back home. My cables were just long enough to reach without disconnecting the Jeep too which was a bonus.
No more issues until the day we were leaving to come home where the rv wouldn't start again even with a boost. I've built lots of cars and even owned a shop where we did hotrods and race cars but had no desire for diesels back then so never took the time to learn much about them. Well I wish I had of now, lol anyway lift the bed and start looking around to see what may be the issue. I see a solenoid with a plunger attached to the fuel system. Got the wife to turn the key on while watching and nothing happens. Then got her to crank the engine and still nothing happens. Now I get her to try it again while I push up on the plunger. As soon as she turned the key to the run position I felt the magnet hold the plunger and when she cranked it fired right away. :) I had to do it a couple more times on the way home but other then that the trip was great and I did learn a bit about how diesels work.
Of course I came on here later and found out exactly what was happening and what the fix was. All good now thanks to this site.

Most of us know, be it home ir on the road----" IF you have stuff, stuff is going to happen " Prepare for it ! We learned the hard way with sailboats before the M H 20 yrs ago.

You might want to consider adding an inexpensive TPMS (tire pressure monitoring System). I have one that I move between our toy hauler trailer, pontoon boat, jet ski, utility trailers whenever we take any of them any distance. It plugs into the lighter outlet and is fast and easy to set up. I wish I had taken it the time I rented a U-haul to help our grandson move back to CA. having a blowout in a remote NV area on I-80. That's where I found that 911 works even when you have no cell service.

Last trip coming back from Albuquerque NM to Prescott AZ.... the right trailing arm on the rear axle snapped, think it may have occured as I was leaving Albuquerque. Never knew it went, drove home 400 miles with only feeling a bit of wobble when making turns and when a cross wind hit. Discovered it when parking in my driveway, saw R/R wheels not centered in wheel well. Known problem with this year vehicle (2004 Holiday Rambler & Monacos) had inspected it a month prior and saw no cracks. Arm sheared off forward of the axle, dropped 2” and caught on the lower U bolt plate. Since an open differential powers the right side when going foward, it pushed the axle forward and held ithe arm in place while driving. Air suspension bag at the rear of the axle and torsion bar also helped keep it in place. Repair cost estimate is about $3K, and that’s with me doing the work. Two new arms, 4 new air bags (all 4 corners), pulling drive shaft out for inspection and repair if needed.