BROADCASTS.com

Season 2 Episode 74
3/23/22

I had gone to the RV show at Rockland county community college in suffern New York back in February. It seems like a lot of the new rigs out there are getting rid of valances and putting up curtains.
It also seems like there's a lot more rigs out there with outdoor kitchens. Which got me thinking our first rig did not have one our second one does. And we don't use the outdoor kitchen very often.
Also I noticed not one rig or camper had a topper on its slide. We love our toppers.

I finished putting up the curtains in the living room which meant removing the valence and moving the light switch. A beautiful decision.
Here's a link to the before and after pics https://www.facebook.com/277623782811787/posts/1115125672394923/

I went to put out my awning and nothing. I then tried the over-the-cab bed also not working. All else working. Tried it on shore power, 12v batteries and generator. Same issues.
I checked 12v fuses, all good.
Are these 2 issues related?
I'm sure they are. The first thing I did was I went to the fuse box the over the cab bed and the awning are on the same 15 and fuse. I tested the fuse and tested good but I replaced it anyway. Nothing.

I called Thor support line. And so the headaches began. There was a recording that they were very overwhelmed and I wouldn't lose my spot and what I like a return call. I figured sure why not. Later that evening somebody was asking a question about Thor service so I told them my experience that I just mentioned. About an hour later I received a private message from a representative that Thor and she is assured me that she would start a ticket for me and have somebody call the next day.
She also told me that I need to register the rig at Thor this way I can be notified of recalls etc. Here's the website she gave me to do that: warrantysupport@tmcrv.com
The next day I did receive a call from a tech support at Thor. But for over an hour she had me looking for the over the cab bed controller. I couldn't locate it she said she would get back to me that afternoon.
A couple hours later she emailed me that there is no controller and I needed to replace a relay I found four of them I took a picture of the one I thought it was. I emailed it to the tech and she said yes that's the one you need to replace. I went online I ordered it it arrived at the house a few days later. I swapped out the relay the problem continued. I emailed her back and let her know this and she had me hook up an amp meter to different connections on the relay and I emailed her the results. She's then conferred with another tech for a couple of hours and got back to me and said the relay I replaced was not the right relay. She sent me the description and a picture of the correct relay.
That was inaccurate there was no other relay underneath the bed. I then sent her an email about my frustration because this has been going on for almost a week now. And I told her if she cannot resolve my issue I want to talk to the service manager. Well that never happened. So after 9 days of dealing with Thor tech I finally gave up. Our choices were to either bring it to a shop, Thor in Indiana, or call George Fry. If you listen to my previous episodes especially early on I've mentioned George's name a few times. George is a local mobile tech here in the Hudson Valley of New York. He helped us diagnose a problem with our solenoid operating our BCC battery control center on our last rig. When he found that problem he recommended we take it to four to have them fix it being a built it. And when our generator failed on our last rig he explained to me about finding the fault code and tracking down the problem while we were on the road near Canada. Here’s the episode where I talk about the BCC and Generator issue: https://www.spreaker.com/user/relaxrv/relax-rv-episode-5_1
Then about a year later I burst my hot water heater here's a video on that.
https://youtu.be/Ttkn2dYAh8Y
He suggested at that time I order a water heater myself and once it arrived here he installed it without an issue. I've talked to George numerous times regarding my furnace that wouldn't light here's my video on that.
George is a phenomenal resource. Here is his website: http://tlc-rv.com/ tell him I say hi.
So when I gave up on Thor tech for this issue I called George he came over that afternoon. He explained to me that the relay that Thor tech said I needed to replace was not the correct relay. So he did some testing and come to find out that relay that Thor diagnosed as the culprit ran the macerator pump for our outdoor kitchen. SMH. He then started pulling out the switches for the bed and for the awning he traced wires. How he knew which wire to trace is beyond me I'm not an electrician. He then ran some jump wires to diagnose where the brake was. At that point he crawled underneath the rig found the wire that he needed to trace and traced it all the way from the front wheel on the passenger side to the back wheel on the driver side while it was wrapped in loom along with 20 other wires. Then he said I found it! There was a bare piece of wire that had been rubbing against the frame of the RV because Thor had not secured all of the wires inside the loom. So he cut out that bad piece of bare wire put in a butt connector secured it back inside the loom and secure the outside of the loom to keep the wires securely inside the loom. While under there he also tightened up a few loose grounds.
George had been here a total of 2 hours. When we were settling the bill I told George you have been here four times at my rig in my driveway. You've been a resource on phone calls when I'm traveling around. And all of that you've only charged me one call for the water heater. I explained to him that I have given you nice tips in the past but this time I want you to charge a fair amount, do not shortchange yourself. He laughed and gave me a super low ball price basically he charged me for 1 hours worth of work while he was here for two and fixed the problem and did an on-site call which should have been another charge. Thank you George I think you might be listening to this episode.
So the next day I crawled underneath the rig and I secured more loom where I could see loose wires. I also tightened up another ground that I had found. And then went into the rig sort of closing everything back up putting away light switches which George was going to do and I told him I got it George thank you.

So now I'm sitting in the rig with an awning that's working and over the cab bed that's working and we're leaving in 2 and 1/2 weeks or so for a 2-month trip down south through the Shenandoah Blue ridge mountains North Carolina Tennessee Kentucky West Virginia Virginia New Jersey and back home. In that time we will be picking up Kingston Trish's grandson and we wanted this bed operating for him. So here I am in the rig closing up things and said well now is a good time for a podcast episode. So right now it's 38° outside here in New York. The rig was 41 when I came into it I turned on the electric heat strip that I had mounted last full in our roof air conditioning unit. And here it is an hour later and it is now 55° in the rig. And the furnace didn't kick on at all.
Last week when we discovered the awning issue I had looked underneath the rig to see if I can find a loose wire somewhere. When I got a faint smell of propane. Unfortunately when we parked the rig in the beginning of the winter I didn't turn off the propane at the tank. So I knew that I had replaced the propane line in the back of the rig for the grill quick disconnect but this was coming right near the tank. So I started taking apart connections near the regulator. I found two problems. An o-ring had a crack in it on one of the connections so I replaced that and then I took the connections off of the regulator and there should have been gas line sealing tape on two of the connections where there was no rubber seals. So I took them apart sealed them and put them back together. Problem solved unfortunately I lost a half of tank of propane over the winter. The great news is it didn't catch on fire lol. Folks you always need to look on the bright side in rving and in life otherwise you'll go mad.
And now it's time to start getting ready for our RV trip yay. We started planning this trip a few weeks ago and over the course of about four evenings we had our route laid out. This is a short video showing how we plan our routes.


It looks like we will be on the road for about 7 weeks. Our first stop will be a Jim Thorpe Pennsylvania. We will stay at a hand full of wineries via Harvest Hosts. And about half of our nights will be spent at Boondockers Welcome locations. All of which have at least 15 amp electric and a few have 50 amp. And 1 had a dump.
The majority of the campgrounds are Passport America campgrounds which will cost us half of their typical rate.
If you go to relaxrv.org/discounts there are links to memberships at all 3 of these companies. Harvest Hosts. Boondockers Welcome. And Passport America.

We will be away for 7 weeks for a total cost of $650 in camping fees. Not too shabby.

So the next episode will be In about 3 weeks. And we will probably be somewhere in the Shenandoah’s at that time.

So what do you do to help MANAGE your STRESS? Perhaps you or someone you know would benefit from listening to Stress Management Exercises? I have 3 FREE Stress Management recordings at https://relaxrv.org/help/

If that ain't your thing, I have DISCOUNTS on my website to various RV related stuff.
https://relaxrv.org/discounts/

I’ve made some videos about improvements and fixes I’ve done to the RV. Here’s a link to them on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzwH6GhSMBDJ7qKxsLng-TA
Or you can watch them on my website at
https://relaxrv.org/videos/

Here’s a link to my RelaxRVPodcast Facebook page