Daily Archives: November 1, 2012
Rut Roh . . .
That’s what you say when you turn the key to crank the RV and absolutely nothing happens. All the lights came on just like normal, but,
No clicking, no cranky, no nothing.
Bummer!
We were getting ready to head out on our 150 mile trip up to north Alabama, so this was a kink in our plans.
Although my Silverleaf display showed my battery voltage was fine, I next tried the AUX Start, again with no luck.
Nada, not a peep.
I had a similar problem three years ago when we stopped for lunch in Jacksonville, FL. We came out to find that the engine wouldn’t crank. After a little troubleshooting I discovered that the Start wire had broken off the starter solenoid. Replacing the wire and the connector got us back on the road in about an hour.
But I doubted I had the same problem again. So my next idea was to call American Coach Customer Support. And it was a really good idea.
After thinking a minute, Jim, the tech guy, led me to a connector next to the Battery Control Center at the rear of the coach beside the engine. He said to pull apart the 2 wire connector and plug in the dummy connector that should be hanging on the cable. He said a Start Signal is routed through the box and using the dummy plug bypasses it.
And that did the trick. It cranked right up. Jim said there is a relay and a 5 amp fuse in the box that might be causing the problem. Since I wanted to go ahead and get on the road I asked what would not work with the BCC bypassed. He said that the house batteries would not charge.
Since we didn’t plan on running anything off the batteries, I decided to hit the road and worry about the fix later.
We pulled out of the Cane 9 Creek RV Park just 18 minutes later than I had planned and got on I-20W. But I got off about 10 miles down the road and got on US-431, a nice 4 lane highway heading for Huntsville, AL, about 100 miles away.
Taking I-20 all the way into Birmingham and then I-65 north to Athens, AL would have been faster, but US-431 was certainly more scenic.
Getting into Huntsville, we got on US-72W for the last 20 mile leg into Athens, and Northgate RV Park, which is owned by my cousin. It’s always convenient to have an RV park in the family.
After checking in with the family and resting up for a while, we headed out for dinner at a local favorite of ours, Catfish Cabin. Luckily for us, it was as delicious as always.
Tomorrow we’ll try to catch up with some more relatives.
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Thought for the Day:
Moderation in defense of your country is NO virtue
sfgsfg
Sweet Home Alabama . . .
Today was going to be a long travel day for us, about 325 miles from Savannah, GA to Heflin, AL, so we got an early start, leaving Hardeeville RV Park about 9am. Actually we left at 10am EST, but normally when we’re crossing a time zone, I just start us out on the destination time.
We took US-17 across the river and then onto I-16 for the 160 mile run up to Macon. As we got out of Savannah, we started picking up a lot of wind, but in this case it was pretty much all headwind.
We didn’t have a lot of side to side movement, but the mileage really sucked. Never got much over 7.5 MPG.
Bummer!
Leaving Macon, we got on I-75 and headed north to Atlanta where we picked up I-20W, after taking the I-285 loop around the city. Then about 65 miles later we were back home in Alabama.
A little more ‘home’ for me than Jan. I was born here, and mostly grew up in the state. Jan and I were married here, and lived here for about 8 years in between stints with the DOD traveling around the country. Then in Dec 1978 we moved to Houston where I went to work for NASA.
That was pretty much it until we went full-time the beginning of 2008.
Since we planned on eating early Jan just fixed us some peanut butter crackers as a light lunch at one of our rest stops.
Getting into Heflin, AL, we decided to follow up on the Internet reviews for Marie’s BBQ there. And a plus was the fact that they had RV/Truck parking. We figured if we ate first before we got to the RV park, we wouldn’t have to unhook the toad when we got there.
Marie’s was really good, We both had sliced pork BBQ sandwiches. Jan had hers with fries and fried green tomatoes, and I had BBQ beans and cole slaw. All delicious.
After we finished eating we drove on down to the Cane 9 Creek RV Park, where we got parked and set up for the night. They’re a Passport American park, so it only cost us $15 for the night.
Tomorrow we’ll made a 200 mile run to Athens, AL where we’ll be for the next 4 nights.
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Thought for the Day:
Today, if you invent a better mousetrap, the government comes along with a better mouse. – Ronald Reagan
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