nothing special motorhome thread

[BigBrother-84]

Nothing Special wrote

It makes no sense, but it doesn't have to make sense to still get you in trouble.

Isn’t this the case for a lot of rules and laws?

[Gary Lewis]

I would never want to have two trailers.  I'm "ok" at backing one trailer.  Not good, but I get by.  However, two trailers looks like a jack knife waiting to happen.

As for the laws, my very limited understanding is that most laws of this kind are a bandaid on a previous law to fix part of a problem.  So someone may have wanted to pull an ATV on the 2nd trailer and lobbied for that to be allowed, but someone else said we have to limit it to that because this could get out of hand.

So I think the motorhome to pull Pluto is the best approach, even though it comes with extra maintenance.

[Nothing Special]

BigBrother-84 wrote

Isn’t this the case for a lot of rules and laws?

A guy I used to work with said "there's a reason we call it "the legal system" rather than "the justice system""

Gary Lewis wrote

I would never want to have two trailers.  I'm "ok" at backing one trailer.  Not good, but I get by.  However, two trailers looks like a jack knife waiting to happen....

I used to have a friend who was a truck driver.  I asked him how you back up a "double-bottom" (three trailers, really, with a small trailer with a fifth-wheel between the two semi trailers).  He said you back it up like you don't have any trailers at all.  That gives you the best chance of getting the truck in a position you can drive out of forward, and that's the best you can hope for when backing a double-bottom!

I think it'd be the same with two trailers.  Plan on never being able to back up, and if you do, just try to do it a little as possible so you can drive out forward.

[Nothing Special]

Well, Lesley has her radio to sing along with!  Turns out there was nothing wrong with the radio, just two people who didn't know what they were doing.

The first person was the guy who installed the radio in the first place.  When I bought the motorhome the radio in the dash came on when you turned on the main battery switch for the camper.  I suppose that makes some sense if you want to use the radio while you're in camp (which we never do), but it's not so great when you're driving.

So one of the first things I did was rewire it to get ignition switched power from the van battery.  But this is where the second person came in.  I didn't also change where the radio got it's unswitched power.  I hadn't even realized that there was an unswitched power line on the camper system.  But evidently there is, because when I removed the camper battery the radio didn't work.  Now the radio is getting both switched and unswitched power from the van!


I haven't tried to make any more progress on the drain in the van's electrical system.  The clicking I heard last night was gone today.  I still should try to track it down, but right now all I'm doing is let the freshly charged battery sit over night.

[Gary Lewis]

Progress!  That's a win, for sure!  

As for the clicking, that's going to be hard to find if it won't click.  I'm guessing it was something that was turning off as the battery voltage got too low, but when it turned off the battery came back up just enough to turn it on.  But no idea what that would be.

Good luck!

[Nothing Special]

My thoughts too, both on what the clicking was and how hard it will be to find now.  Well, time will tell...

[Nothing Special]

Part of the battery project is done!

Having found out that shutting off the camper battery doesn't completely shut off the camper battery, I wanted to add a real shut-off switch.

Also I usually only have one camper battery in, but there's room for two.  However the cables required the one battery to be in the rear of the battery compartment, and if you wanted to put two batteries you have to put the front one in first.  So you had to take out the first battery, put the second battery in and then put the first battery back in.

Finally I wanted a way to hook up my air compressor, or to be able to jump to the camper battery more easily.

I don't have a "before" picture, and it's hard to tell what you're seeing in the "after" picture below.  This is looking in the camper entry, at the steps.  The camper battery is under one of the steps.  To the left in the picture I added a shut-off switch and extended the positive cable to reach the battery in the forward position (to the right).  So now there's room to put the second battery in behind the first, without having to move anything!

Also I hooked an Anderson plug to the battery.  Not only can I plug my air compressor in or use it to jump to or from the battery.  But also I wired up another Anderson plug for the second battery, so when I put it in I can just plug it in!

[Gary Lewis]

Now THAT is good thinking!  I really like that.  

And I'll bet that switch makes a big difference on how long the battery lasts.  It is amazing how many things bleed power.  

[grumpin]

Nice! I agree, good thinking!

[Nothing Special]

Nothing Special wrote

Part of the battery project is done!....

And now the rest of it is too!  This part wasn't as helpful as the first part, because Ford didn't do as bad a job of mounting their battery as Thor did mounting theirs.  But I decided a shut-off switch and an Anderson plug would be nice to have on the van battery too.

I'm now declaring the motorhome ready for the trip to Moab!  (Pluto's been ready for a while now).

[BigBrother-84]

Nothing Special wrote

I'm now declaring the motorhome ready for the trip to Moab!  (Pluto's been ready for a while now).

Exciting!

[Gary Lewis]

Well done!  And now you have several places to plug your compressor in.  

I'm sure going to miss Moab.  My brother and family is there now.  But I got the hotel room canceled w/o a problem so it'll have to be another time.  

[Nothing Special]

Yeah, I'm sorry you can't go, but I agree you're making the only choice.  And I'm glad you aren't out anything on the hotel!

[Nothing Special]

I figured I should keep this thread up to date now that the Moab trip is over.  There's a report on the trip itself here, so I won't rehash most of those details.  I'll just hit the motorhome highlights.

Driving out we were stopping at Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.  That made it a little confusing to work out the departure time and daily drive distances.  In the end we left at 6:00 PM on Thursday, and drove ~230 miles, stopping at about 10:00 north of Des Moines.  Friday was the weird day because we drove ~620 miles, starting at 7:00 and stopping about 5:30 (11.5 hours with the time zone change) just east of Denver.  The problem with that day was that going any farther meant we wouldn't have any good places to stop until well after dark, and we wanted to be able to see the scenery and not be really tired driving through the mountains.  So we stopped early.

Saturday was then pretty short and relatively slow, driving about 380 miles, getting started at 7:30 and pulling into our camp site at about 4:00.  We did go over Loveland Pass rather than through the Eisenhower Tunnel, which added some time and distance to the day, but was a nice scenic drive on a beautiful sunny day.

We didn't spend much time at Black Canyon, pulling out at about 11:00 the next morning for the 190 mile drive to Moab, getting there about 4:00.

I did (re)learn that on this drive I should buy gas in southern MN so I can make it all the way to Nebraska before filling up again.  Iowa gas prices are relatively low on the signs, but it's a bait-and-switch, with the posted prices being E15 and E10 being a LOT more expensive.  E10 in MN is probably cheaper than E15 in Iowa, and E10 is a LOT cheaper in Nebraska.  On the other end of the trip, I should've filled up in Grand Junction CO on the way out.  Then I could've made it back to Colorado on the return trip and not had to pay Utah prices for gas (which made Iowa E10 look really cheap!).

Coming home we left a day earlier than planned, which we thought would give us an easy drive over parts of three days.  And it did turn out to be pretty easy, but on paper (or on pixels) it doesn't look it as I drove about 480 miles (from noon to 9:00), stopping in eastern Colorado on Friday, and then an 800 mile day, starting at 8:00 and getting home at 11:30 (14.5 hours with the time zone).  I think 800 miles is my record in the motorhome, but the drive was going well, and it never seemed worth stopping.

The total trip was ~2,700 miles in the motorhome (plus another ~650 in Pluto), burning 382 gallons of gas, for an average of 7.2 mpg, about typical mileage for this rig.

There were no issues with the motorhome.  We never had a dead battery (but then again, we didn't really use them hard either).  I continue to be impressed with how well just the van's AC keeps the temperature down on the road.  We were never tempted to start the generator to run the coach AC.  On the other hand, the coach AC was doing all it could to keep the temperature in check while we were camped in Moab.  But then again, it was upper 90s and low 100s while we were there.

However I also continue to be unimpressed with the engine and the powertrain management system.  The trans doesn't stay in the right gear and the engine needs to scream on any hills.  I know it's a pipe dream, but I'd really like a turbo diesel and a manual transmission in a motorhome!

I posted a lot more pictures in the trip thread, but I'll repost some highlights here.  Here is going up Loveland Pass.



Here's one picture from Black Canyon of the Gunnison



And here's our camp site in downtown Moab

[Gary Lewis]

Glad the motorhome did so well - save for the powertrain's lack of torque and poor choice on gears.

On that subject, I've been impressed with the 3.5L Ecoboost and the 6-speed auto in Blue.  The amount of torque that engine can produce is remarkable, at any altitude, and the tow/haul mode on the tranny does a good job of picking the right gear - including downshifting while braking for engine braking assist. But that does include the engine screaming as I remember a really long descent pulling the boat out of Page, Utah requiring 4000 RPM for a few minutes - but no brakes while everyone else was riding the brakes.

Given that I think it is possible for the engine people to give us an engine with the kind of torque needed to move a motorhome w/o high revs.  But I think they can give us an auto tranny that'll do what we want w/o going to a manual.  In fact, my 6-speed has a manual mode if you really want to be in control, although I've never needed to use that mode.

Anyway, glad you had a trip without mechanical defugalties.  

[Nothing Special]

I know it's possible to have an engine that will move a motorhome without needing to be at 4500 rpm.  Just about any engine ever put in a motorhome will do that (other than the 6.8L V-10 Ford used from about 1999 to 2020 ).  What I will say in favor of this engine is that is quite capable and gets pretty good mileage.  I just don't like driving a motorhome at 3500 - 5000 rpm.  All.  The.  Time.

As to an automatic being able to make me happy, I'm sure it's possible, but I'm equally sure it'll never happen.  That's maybe a little harsh, the E4ODs in both my '95 F-150 and in Oswald have never annoyed me too much.  But those are the only autos I've driven that I can say that about.  If one had a full manual mode that would go a long way toward making an automatic always have the correct shift points ().  But I don't think that'll happen much.  Someone will always say "Well what if the driver pick the wrong gear and overrevs the engine?  Or lugs and overheats the transmission?" and they'll put in an automatic override that keeps you from manually doing things they think you shouldn't.  Sounds great on paper, but in execution my experience says they'll go too far with it.

And it's those electronic nannies that make me sure that automakers won't ever give a powertrain management system that isn't annoying.  My Dodge might even be worse than the motorhome as I described in the WHYDTYTT thread.

Plus there's the heat from automatics.  Pluto used to overheat when I'd think about going up a hill.  Going back to a mechanical fan helped a lot, but the overheating issues didn't disappear until I replaced the AOD (with manual valve body) with a real manual trans.  On this Moab trip I almost never saw the temperature gage climb higher than it does driving to work on a 40° day.  The "almost" comes from lugging up a STEEP hill on Hell's Revenge on a 103° day when it moved up about 2 needle-width, and then dropped right back down after I crested the hill.  I can't say I've had trouble with heat in the motorhome.  In fact, the engine temp gage is as stable as Pluto's (there's no trans temp gage so I don't know how it's doing).  But then again, at 4500 rpm the cooling system ought to be working well.

[Nothing Special]

We just finished another motorhome trip.  This one was about 600 miles and never left Minnesota.  After realizing that we were getting to quite a few National Parks without making a point of it Lesley decided a few years ago that we should make a point of it.  And there's a National Park right here in our home state that we hadn't been to.

Well, now we have!  We went to Voyageurs National Park, on the Minnesota/Canada border.  We towed Pluto up (on his street tires) just for transportation while we were there (I drove him around in front wheel drive, never bothering to put the rear driveshaft in after taking it out to tow).

I took Friday off, so we left Friday morning and got to camp ("The Pines at Kabetogama") at about 3:00, giving us enough time Friday afternoon and evening to set up camp and drive to the park visitors center, as well as to a couple of hiking trails where we could bring the dogs (pets aren't allowed on most of the trails in most National Parks).

And speaking of which, we did bring both dogs on this trip.  Usually I can't talk Lesley into that, but with a 12 week old puppy that's not housebroken yet she didn't feel like imposing on our usual dog sitters (our kids), so I got to bring them.  Both dogs traveled really well, so I might be able to talk her into it again!

Anyway, here's a view of our camp site


Here is the four of us on a dock near the visitors center


And here's a view from one of the hikes (the far horizon is probably Canada)


So that was Friday.  This was Saturday


I woke up yesterday feeling terrible!  I won't get into the details, but I basically switched between the bed, the couch, and occasionally a chair outside if I was feeling really ambitious!  My dog was happy to keep me company all day.  Lesley's puppy was willing to crash with me at times.  And Lesley... well she read a couple of books.

Fortunately I was starting to recover by evening, and we took a short walk down to the lake, and then another around the campground.  This morning we rented a 2-person kayak and went for a 2 mile paddle before packing up and driving home.  I had to rest a little after the kayak trip (and the hike back up the hill to the motorhome), but I didn't have any trouble driving home, and I even grilled the steaks and cooked the potatoes that I was supposed to do for supper yesterday (and could even eat them today!).

So it wasn't the greatest trip, but it wasn't a complete loss either.

We did have some trouble with the motorhome that we're going to need to take care of before the next trip.  Lesley's been noticing a smell in it, and on this trip we realized that we're losing propane.  The fridge runs on 110V AC or propane, so if we shut off the valve on the propane tank to not blow ourselves up we need to run the generator to provide power to the fridge.  Even with 6.5 hours of generator use (it pulls from the same tank as the motorhome engine) we still got about 7.7 mpg on this trip, pretty good for towing Pluto, but there weren't many hills, and we were never above about 67 mph, with a lot of the trip closer to 60.

So that was that trip, and one more sticker in our National Parks book!

[grumpin]

Nice! (Except the not feeling good part!)

Looks beautiful! It's amazing how much there is to see in the state you live in. I have a new one to discover, but man I don't travel like I used to.

[Gary Lewis]

I agree with Dane.  Sometimes we overlook the close at hand.  But you have a beautiful state.

Bummer on getting sick, but at least the illness was fairly short-lived.  Had it been COVID like is going around here it would have been a bigger, longer problem.

As for the propane leak, I'd hope that is a fairly easy thing to solve.  But solve it must be!

[Nothing Special]

Technically I suppose I have been to Voyageurs before.  A friend of mine has a family cabin on Sandpoint Lake, one of the border lakes between Voyageurs and Ontario (the cabin is on the Canadian side of the lake).  In and right after college we did a few canoe trips in that area, ranging from a few days up to a week and a half of backcountry camping.  I'm sure at some point on some of those trips we were on the Minnesota side of the imaginary line running through the lake!

Speaking of which, if you're coming any distance to see Voyageurs National Park you should plan on seeing it from the lakes more than we did on this short RV trip.  You can rent a houseboat and stay on the water, or you can tent camp on the other side of Lake Kabetogama, either from canoes or from a power boat.  Lots of people go there to fish.  And I guess the Kettle Falls Hotel is nice, and only accessible by water.

We thought about bringing our boat, but then we couldn't have brought Pluto, which would've meant using the motorhome to drive around for sightseeing and to launch the boat.  Not impossible, but it makes everything a lot more involved.  And we thought about taking one of the boat tours on Saturday, but....

Still, it was a good trip, just not quite what it could've been.