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Power Powertech Generator
I thought I’d detail our voltage regulator replacement on our generator. A lot of people have done this procedure wrong and their generators caught fire and burned up or worse.
This is how it’s done on ours.
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So any self respecting geek is going to want internet access. The average LTE plan is ridonculously fast anymore (I’ve seen 50Mbit down in rural areas) and feels like a home connection. That’s great but they are usually limited unless you are particularly crafty. As a result most people tend to try to use wifi. For many people this involves turning on your laptop, trying to connect and bitching that it doesn’t work.
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Every now and then I have the rare treat of geeking out with some of my most technical readers. This is one of those times. LOL I’m kidding, nobody reads this. But anyway, if you don’t understand what I’m talking about here I would recommend hitting Google and figuring things out. Knowing this stuff can earn you lots of money as full time RVers. Everything IT can be done remotely and if you have a formidable IT skillset you are in demand…
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Because an RV just can’t do very much with diamonds. There is no single thing that can damage an RV more quickly and completely (except maybe a car accident or fire) than water. When we bought the Winnebago we bought it knowing that it had water damage. We made a calculated risk and it paid out alright but we always worried a bit about the side wall delamination. We never could tell if there was any structural issues.
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Buying a used older motorhome is not for the faint of heart. Things will break and more things will break. Right around the 10 year mark things really start to go wrong and the previous owner of our motorhome felt that for sure. Because I don’t have any certainty as far as when things were repaired I decided to do basically all of the routine maintenance at once.
Rewind back to when we bought the coach - the a/c compressor clutch was fried.
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Today we tried an experiment. We tried to make a video… And we figured out that we are not the Wynns… We will never be YouTube stars. I can’t stop cursing long enough to make a video that isn’t all bleeps. Oh well. Of course I should mention that today probably wasn’t a fair shake due to the misery that I subjected myself to. You see I decided to change the fuel water separator and clean out the prefilter.
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For us buying a new motorhome inevitably means doing a large amount of neglected maintenance. Couple that with the fact that this is our first diesel and that means that this is quite the learning experience. Our new engine is the Cummins M11 Celect+, also known as the ISM. Ours is a pretty early (for cummins) electronic injected common rail diesel engine. This type of engine offers (typically) a bit better gas mileage and there is no lift pump to fail - BUT - it has expensive injectors and high pressure fuel pump to fail.
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Buying a used coach comes with the unique experience of constant discovery of new things hidden away. These things are someitmes good, sometimes bad. Our 1998 Winnebago Adventurer 32 came with a very factory supplied looking 200 watt-ish inverter that powers the tv, vcr, etc. One of our first modifications was to install one of our two sets of Bose Companion 2 speaker and subwoofer setups. Last year on a lengthy trip to Florida, we wre suprised when halfway through the trip the inverter shut off.
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We had problems with our fuel pump. At least that’s the operating theory. We didn’t do a whole lot of diagnosis for reasons I will explain. It all started when we crested a hill after a long climb on a 98 degree F day. The motorhome died completely. We coasted down the mountain with a dead engine and came to a stop in the chain removal lane. The motorhome would start but it would sputter and die in a few seconds and the symptoms just screamed fuel to me.
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One morning we were surprised to wake up to a brisk 59 degree bedroom. Given that the thermostat was set on 73, obviously something was wrong. Our motorhome has dual ducted central thermostat controlled air conditioners. Although people are quick to call a repair man, issues with these units are typically easy to diagnose. Before we get into it, one thing you should know is that these units are factory filled and sealed with no way to check or fill the “freon” (also properly known as refrigerant) level.