I'm looking at a 2004 u320 that the owner passed away and I'm pretty sure things froze. I hooked up the water hose and water started pouring out both sides. I wasn't getting any water to any of the faucets. Anyone have a guess as to how much is damaged? Also, any idea how the aqua hot would of faired?
In my opinion until you pull the vanity covers and start snooping around there isn't a real good way to guess on the damage. Could be little or could be big depending on how cold this coach was subject to and how long. Could be a money pit or a nice project coach.
Where is the coach located? Northern Michigan is a hole different winter than NE Texas.
Mike
On the water part open the compartment doors and try and see where the water is coming from,if somehow the tanks got ruptured and internal water pipies your looking at major trouble,someone with aqua hot know how will chime in.
An AquaHot that wasn't winterized and had the coil freeze and rupture needs a rebuild with a new coil, definitely over $10K there unless you can DIY the coil.
Washer/Dryer that froze if it had any water in it likely needs to be replaced.
Fridge may need new water line and/or icemaker (or perfect time to remodel to a residential).
I hadn't even thought about the fridge and washer. It's in Georgia, a little south of Atlanta. We had a really cold week back in December where it was 20 at night. The house batteries are at 0 voltage too, the inverter won't even go into charge mode.
The inverter will not charge dead batteries if it is a Prosine. I don't know which aqua hot is in this coach, but if it has the internal water loop it would need to be replaced.
Ended up buying it. Turns out the starter was bad, Coach batteries are toast. House batteries are Lifeline 8d and are reading 0 voltage. I swapped in a good 8d and made sure it was charged, I got the inverter reset and the charge light is on, but the voltage just keeps dropping. I think the charge side of the inverter is toast, which may have contributed to the freezing. I think it was plugged in all winter, but without a 12v supply, the intelex system and aqua hot won't energize and function.
Only freeze damage was to the fittings right at the check valve just after the hose spool. and the line to the ice maker in the fridge. Seems I got lucky on that one.
I replaced the starter and chassis batteries (that was a pain) and she fired right up, but then the alternator wasn't charging. I checked and I have voltage at both the excite and sense connections on the alternator. So I'm thinking its just bad too.
Looks like she sat for about 3 years. The PO had it at FOT multiple times for service and repairs with the last one being about 3 years ago. We also found an invoice for replacing 100' of fence at FOT. I'm thinking he may have backed over some of the fence. That would explain the damage to the ladder. I think he hung up the keys after that.
Current plan is to replace the alternator. Replace the inverter with a Victron Multiplex wired to the whole system, add some solar on the roof and basically set this thing up for whatever situation can be thrown at it.
If anyone has any ideas on how to restore those lifeline batteries, I'm open to suggestions. I hate to see them just go to waste. Date code is 21 on them.
Before replacing alternator:
where did you check to see if it was charging?
Did you check the isolator?
check the resistance in the sense line breaker?
Don't fall into the trap of all alternators are the same as you will need a DUVAC alternator to make the system work OEM.
Sounds like a decent project coach. Welcome to the tinker nation.
Mike
I checked voltage at the isolator and the alternator as well as the breaker up front for the excite wire. Ordered the same part number as what is on there, so should be a direct replacement.
Is the aquahot ok?
With those checks you most likely have a bad alternator. Now I say that as it could be a bad voltage regulator or bad brushes due to overheating which either is a pretty simple fix. If this alt. was run for a period of time trying to charge a dead battery system then the stator could be melted down which for most people means just replace.
Mike
The aqua hot seems ok. Getting a bunch of grit out of the hot water lines, but it does heat on electric. I can't get the diesel heater to fire, I need to dig into that. She runs great and is smooth and quiet. Totally different experience than the 91 with the Detroit
I'd like to get the alternator rebuilt to have as a spare if anyone has a shop near Atlanta, GA they would recommend.
Because of sitting not used, the burner will need servicing as a minimum.
Tappy tap on the alternator while running. Maybe the brushes are stuck , crusty . New is nice tho .
I'm-a-thinking you need to relocate to east Texas for a bit and take advantage of Mike's and Rudy's knowledge.
Pictures of the new coach or it didn't happen!
When we were at FOT a while back the fence was knocked over. I asked about it and was told someone was backing their coach up with the wife behind directing. She told him to stop and he hit the go petal, instead of the brake. Coach went up and over curb and pinned wife between coach and fence. Not real sure what happened to her.
Is there a rebuild kit I should order? or is it just pull it a part first to see what it needs?
Years back, I bought a DP out of someone's yard and fixed it up. It was not a FT, so I repaired it for resale.
Your journey sounds like so much fun! I love the detective work, the research, and the conquering of the problems!
Pictures as requested. She is very dirty outside, but the inside is clean.
Slides- do they move?
With the house batteries dead my guess is that there would be a good chance burning up pump motor with the low voltage if tried.
As for a "Rebuild Kit" for the Aqua Hot, you need to order 2 or 3 nozzles for the burner. You can add one or two fuel filters for the Aqua Hot. The filter will be either a Racor R12T or a Garber filter.
The filter is the least necessary item for burner service and the nozzle is the most necessary. You can change the filter when you change the engine and generator filters if you want to.
Pull the burner out, R&R the nozzle, clean the swirler, clean the flame sensor, wipe the ignitor points and check their gap. Gap gauge is on the burner case at 10 O'clock to the left of the coil. Remount the burner and turn it on. Exhaust should be clean and clear, no visible vapor. If smokey as it heats up, let it run to cook off unfired fuel in the exhaust system. You are done.
Yup. once we got the system aired up so the bladders would deflate, the slides worked perfect. I didn't try then with the dead house batteries, I was trying to air the system up with the 12v compressor and it was taking too long. I brought a large compressor the next day and hooked that in to air it up. Slides work, leveling works, tag goes up and down.
That's a beauty. Keep up the good work!
Looks like the living room slide isn't all the way retracted.
I noticed that as well, good catch! Very nice looking rig and will be a great coach when done!
Hoping for Kgrover it's the bargain of the year!
Those pictures were from the sale add. I got the slide working and pulled in before I drove it home. The number of people at the sale that were commenting things like "135k miles is just too many" or "it doesn't have a step well cover, I could never ride in one without a step well cover" was just crazy. I got lucky and no one else there knew what a Foretravel was. Someone did manage to pull the outside grab handle off, so that's on the list too, but so far this is looking to be a great deal.
My buddy that is helping me with the work has a Monaco. I told him he shouldn't drive this thing, he'd never want to get back into the Monaco. He does hit his head on the ceiling in the Foretravel, and the Monaco has the whole drivers side wall that slides out, so he might stick with it.
Got the new alternator in, Seeing ~14.2v at the alternator post, excite wire and sense wire. The gauges in the dash are reading ~12.1 and the jump start posts are reading ~12.35. I think there might be a bad connection or bad ground going to the dash gauges, But the jump start posts are a bit confusing. I might need to take the connections apart and clean them. The weirdest part is that the excite wire is seeing full voltage, and that gets power in the front panel from the same place the gauges do. I just need to spend some time with the multimeter and check every point along the way to see where the drop is. Draw back to a coach that was sitting for a while I guess.
Is it just the mounting that let go or did the lexan handle break? If that's the handle with the doorbell button in the base, those were only used for a short period of time (2003 for sure, possibly 2004) and repair parts haven't been available for a number of years. Those were sourced in either Spain or Italy and even when FOT had them, you had to buy the entire assembly. Some members have glued the handle piece back together.
What voltage are you getting at the isolator?
I believe that Foretravel now stocks handles. I had got one for a friend a few years old
Read up on bulkhead issues. You need to get all the water out of the basement fast!
I found I had missed one of the ground wires going to the back of the starter. Hooked that up and all is well with the alternator.
I have a plumbing question. Does anyone have a diagram for the plumbing on one of these? The expansion tank is connected to the large black and green hose that goes to the toilet, but there is a check valve in the line so it doesn't connect to the rest of the system. That part of the plumbing doesn't look original.
Also, I need to replace all the fabric for the awnings. They are in rough shape. Anyone have a recommendation for ZipDee and Girard replacement fabrics?
ZipDee will match your fabric and size. There should be a tag on the awnings with the color code. Just like the tag on a shirt.
Rich
What toilet is in the coach? Have never seen a dedicated expansion tank on a line to a toilet, and a coach of that generation would have been built with an AquaJet ARV variable speed fresh water pump, so no need for an expansion tank.
Here's info on that area for a 2003 Water Bay Plumbing (https://www.irvblog.com/foretravel%20projects/Water-Bay-Reconfigure/)
A guess would be that they didn't want the pump to come on when using the toilet due to noise at night.
What's with all that wiring mess with the yellow Romex? Definitely needs sorting.
I have seen one coach that had some creative plumbing similar to what i see here. Now if you discover that you have the domestic pump that Michelle has mentioned above and a second one that is hooked up to the surge/volume tank it could be a commode flush system fed from the grey tank. The valve that isn't hooked to anything could be for disinfectant to be added to the storage tank.
Mike
And Sunbrella fabric from Sailrite as well if you have your own place to sew and install: Sailrite: Sewing Supply Store (https://www.sailrite.com/)
MOT and Infinity in Nacogdoches can do it.
Please verify that that black hose IS rated for potable water. That is the common hose for discharge/exhaust.
It looks like it just goes up to the toilet, but it's also showing some signs of cracking. It's on the list to replace for sure. I need to see if I can find a tag on the toilet and get the mfg and model.
The yellow romex is for an outlet that sits on the front of the cover that goes over everything. I just tucked it up out of the way.
I didn't realize it was a variable speed pump. That's pretty cool. I also thought the flexible hose coming off the pump was not supposed to be there, but now it makes sense that it's there to keep the noise down.
Thanks for all the comments and support. I really appreciate it all.
I bet it is a headhunter toilet. I have had a few. There pretty simple. They use the big hose to supply a big amount of water to create a jet like force to move the waste.
Winner winner, chicken dinner!