Our RV Adventures

We were both running kind of slow this morning, Jan nursing a migraine, and me still feeling kind of ‘blahish’. But as usual, after coffee, we perked up a little, at least enough for Jan to read, and for me to get back to looking at my AC problem.

As I  related yesterday, I’ve narrowed the problem down to something in the rig wiring between the thermostat and the AC unit itself. In fact with a little creative rewiring, the AC is working fine, which was nice yesterday when it got up to 88 here.

Post-coffee, I got back on the phone with American Coach trying to get some information on the wiring. They did email me the schematics for the rig, including one that shows the position of all the junction boxes in the rig, measured from the front axle.

But  they also told me that there was no junction box for the control wiring, but then couldn’t  explain why the wire gauge and insulation type changes between the AC unit and the thermostat.

I did get some help from my posts on RV.net and the Yahoo American Coach group. One guy  said that on his friend’s 1995 Dream they found the front junction box in the same overhead cabinet as the Slide Control Panel, Tank Level Display, and Inverter Panel. He said they found a removable panel there. The problem is I don’t have a removable panel there. I may try removing a couple of the control panels to see if there’s anything behind them.

The guy also said that the one for the rear AC was located in the back of the TV alcove in the bedroom, but I’ll wait till I need that one before I look for it.

And of course, now that I’ve got the AC working, a cold front has moved in. Yesterday, the high was 88, while today it was 71, with tonight in the low 40’s. Nice.

If I hadn’t got the AC working before the heat started back up, as usual, I had a backup plan. Right now we’re parked pointing directly east, so we get the sun through the front windshield all day long. So I was going to the turn the rig around  and point in the other direction.

We used to do this when we stayed at Galveston Bay RV Park and parked in one of their 5’er sites on the water. All our utilities could be pulled under the rig and connected up with no problems.

And even better we’d have a really nice view. Right now we’re just looking at the rigs across the street. But turned around, we’d be in the shade and looking at this.

Sign up for Passport America before 4/30 and get 4 extra FREE Months!

Tomorrow we’re meeting up with our daughter Brandi and her family, and we’re all going down to Galveston to check out our granddaughter Piper’s new apartment.

Really looking forward to it, except for the ‘getting up at 6:30 to leave at 7 to be at Brandi’s at 8:15’ part.

That part I’m not looking forward to.

Thought for the Day:

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. – John Adams, 2nd President of the United States

adfasdfasdf

First off, the link for the Funeral Potatoes got messed up and was pointing to my old Our RV Adventures website, so no recipe there. But it’s here on Jan’s Favorite Recipe page now.

After coffee I got back on my air conditioner problem. Based on what I found yesterday, I’ve come to the conclusion that the problem is not with the AC itself, but with the missing control signal, i.e. the one that turns on the compressor.

Obviously there is some sort of junction box somewhere, because the yellow wire that comes out from the side of the coach roof  to the AC unit is a slightly different gauge and has a different type of insulation than the yellow wire that ends up at the thermostat, plus it has to pick up the 12v from somewhere. So that’s what I need to locate.

So my next step was to put in a call to American Coach to see if they had any insight on my problem. But unlike most times, they weren’t any help. They kept trying to tell me about the control box inside the old AC unit, and how it was located in the duct.

Well, it’s not.

I’ll probably call back tomorrow and hopefully get another tech, and another idea. So my next task was to post my problem on RV.net and the Yahoo American Coach group to see if the Cloud Mind can be of any help.

With all this done, and no more things to check, it was time to put my theory to the test. The theory that this is all a control signal problem, and not a AC unit problem.

My thought was that the 12v fan signal is working and will turn the fan on. So I figured that all I need to do is bridge the fan voltage over to the compressor contact, like this.


Sign up for Passport America before 4/30 and get 4 extra FREE Months!

The red test clip jumps from the fan connection to the compressor connection, so that when the thermostat sends voltage to turn on the fan, it also turns on the compressor. The yellow clip lead is just a temporary jumper for the freeze sensor.

So I turned to the thermostat to Cool, and about 30 seconds later I had this.

Not bad for an 85 degree day.

So we’re cool again, but I still need to figure out what’s causing the problem to start with. But that’s for tomorrow.

Brandi, Lowell, and Landon went up to the Dallas area to visit friends over the Easter weekend.

Looks like Landon got in some fishing,

and some drumming.

He may be taking after his mother, Brandi, who played drums, both in the marching band and a trap set like these.

Finishing up, our granddaughter Piper, has moved down to Galveston to be closer to her job. She an Emergency Room Tech at UTMB Hospital, while working toward her R.N. degree.

She’s got an apartment 3 blocks from the Seawall, near the Bishop’s Palace, and only 5 blocks from work. A lot better than the 60 mile round-trip commute from Friendswood she had before.

Looks like she’s got a nice place.

Saturday we’re meeting up with Brandi, et al, and heading down to Galveston to check out her new place. Really looking forward to it.

When they play Monopoly in prison, what do they do about the “Get Out of Jail Free†card?

adfadsfad