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Forum
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RE: Electric Water Heater
Looks like he’s decided to find a good rv service center in the Bay Area and have them go through the entire rig…seems to be a number of little things going on, and it’s his first rv.
Tks
Depending on where in the Bay Area he's looking I would suggest Leale's RV in San Jose - they do great work.
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Alan_Hepburn
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09/07/23 10:16am |
Class A Motorhomes
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RE: Towing a toad
Are you certain about this? Nearly all Wranglers have a transfer case that can be shifted into neutral for towing, which lets all 4 wheels spin freely, disconnected from the transmission. That being the case, I don't see why a Wrangler couldn't be towed on a dolly, if you wanted to. That is, assuming its not one of the (very rare) 2WD only Jeeps.
The way it was explained to me many years ago was that the way the transfer case worked was that shifting from 2H to 4H connected the front and rear drive shafts together; then shifting from 4H to N disconnected everything from the transmission, but did not disconnect the front and rear driveshafts from each other. I've never taken the time to investigate it further: the manual says don't do it and that's good enough for me!
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Alan_Hepburn
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09/05/23 11:52am |
Dinghy Towing
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RE: Thinking about going to 2024 Calgary Stampede
Check out Fantasy RV Tours - they do a couple of Stampede rallies. For their fee you get several different shows, meals, and RV reservations - a no-hassle way to do the Stampede!
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Alan_Hepburn
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08/20/23 10:54am |
RV Parks, Campgrounds and Attractions
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RE: directv dish
I installed a Winegard Trav'ler myself and have not needed any parts or repairs since installed in 2012. Both the Winegard and the RF Mogul units are good products. There are very few RF Mogul dealers so you need to be handy enough to fix them yourself or look far and wide for a dealer. Winegard usually requires dealers to repair and/or return to factory for repairs. Neither is a perfect solution.
We recently had an issue with our RF Mogul dish: forgot to lower it and smacked it on a tree branch! It looked fine, but would not lock on to the DirecTV satellite - it tried to lock on to something about 100 degrees farther west. I contacted them via their website and in return got a phone call from the owner of the company who ran me through some diagnostics - we determined that the reflector (the dish part) had become bent so that it was no longer able to receive the signal. He had a new reflector shipped to me and I replaced it easily by myself with just a screwdriver. Of course I had to pay for the new reflector because we've had the system for over 2 years, but I expected that.
TLDR: RF Mogul customer support is first rate!
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Alan_Hepburn
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07/24/23 08:24am |
Technology Corner
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RE: Mexwanderer
If you'e interested in paying a small fee for an email account you should check out the folks at Hover - I've had my account with them for over 30 years now and it works well. You can access your account through their web-based system, or you can download your email to your own client (I use Thunderbird) using eith POP3 or IMAP.
It's completely independent of any other company so you aren't required to find a new provider when a company decides to no longer offer email, or you change internet providers. They have plans available for about $20 per year and up - I'm paying $65 for a family plan that gives us a total of 6 email addresses: we're all using our firstname@lastname.com addresses and have been for over 30 years now!
I have no financial interest in them - just a happy customer!
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Alan_Hepburn
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06/20/23 10:59am |
Around the Campfire
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RE: Drive shaft lock out
I believe Remco is the only one making them.
Remco is no longer in the drive shaft disconnect business...
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Alan_Hepburn
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06/20/23 10:46am |
Dinghy Towing
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RE: Sonic Boom
Went down to Edwards AFB back in August 1982 to watch the Space Shuttle Columbia land after its last test flight - the double sonic boom created by the shuttles when they were landing was pretty impressive!
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Alan_Hepburn
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06/11/23 10:40am |
Around the Campfire
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RE: When impatience hurts!
Yes, the video shows the truck in the left lane overtaking the truck in the right, but it certainly wasn’t at a very rapid pace. The delta between speeds seemed pretty small.
Well, how long was the truck in the left lane? If he had just pulled out to pass before the video started then it's going to take him a while to gain some speed to complete the pass. It's takes a lot to accelerate 80K lbs of truck/trailer...
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Alan_Hepburn
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05/31/23 11:54am |
General RVing Issues
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RE: Brake system for 2021 Jeep Grand Cherokee
What kind of tow bars do you have? We have the ready elite tow bars with integrated mechanical brake. Nothing to install in the car and not invasive to electronics.
The Ready Brute Elite does require the installation of a cable from the brake lever on the tow bar to the brake pedal on the vehicle, but other than that it's a great system: we use it on our 2020 Jeep Gladiator and our 2022 Jeep Wrangler.
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Alan_Hepburn
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05/27/23 11:20am |
Dinghy Towing
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RE: RV Armor Roof Experiences
We had ours done about 2 years ago - the guy came out to the campground we were staying in, and took 3 days to do the job. So far it looks great, and we have not experienced any leaks during this year's record rainfall.
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Alan_Hepburn
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05/03/23 03:39pm |
General RVing Issues
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RE: Underground 250ft run
I remember, back in the late '60s I was working as part of a cable TV construction crew in Foster City, California. That was when Foster City was just being built. All utilities were underground and our cable lines were required to be between 12" and 18" down, while gas lines were required to be between 24" and 30" deep. We set our trencher for a depth of 15" to be pretty much within our depth requirements and I lost count of how many times we had to halt our trenching because we hit a gas line! It always meant we got an hour or more break waiting for the gas guys to come out and fix the break, and then rebury their line at the correct depth!
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Alan_Hepburn
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04/06/23 12:47pm |
Tech Issues
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RE: Base Plate question on Jeep Wrangler
The answer will depend on the make and model of the bumper, and possibly the mounting of the winch. In our case, I have a Rugged Ridge Spartan bumper on my 2020 Gladiator, with no winch (yet). I bought Blue Ox adapters that replaced the D-ring mounts on the bumper, and I'm using an NSA Ready Brute Elite tow bar that connects to those adapters. It works quite well. On my wife's 2022 JLU we are using aBlue Ox baseplate with the OEM bumper - all I had to do was remove the plastic panel under the front end.
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Alan_Hepburn
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02/08/23 10:49am |
Dinghy Towing
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RE: breaker 15 / 20
My memory thinks that Bulldog was picked up by Siemens.
You might be right - when I had to replace a breaker a few years ago I found refurbished Pushmatics for anywhere from $20 to $100! Finally found some at Connecticut Electric for a reasonable price so I went ahead and replaced ALL the breakers in the box.
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Alan_Hepburn
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01/08/23 10:38am |
Tech Issues
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RE: breaker 15 / 20
We are very fortunate that NEMA came up with the standard 1" breaker in the early 70's. Prior to that time panel makers had type exclusive breakers so that was what you were stuck with forever. That is, unless you replaced that panel with one that can accept the NEMA 1". I have done this in several places one was my barn that had a WhoKnows panel and no spare breakers were available.
Matt
I agree - our house was built in 1961 and the breaker panel is made for Bulldog Pushmatic breakers - try finding those at Home Depot/Lowes! Even online they're hard to find for a reasonable price.
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Alan_Hepburn
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01/07/23 12:23pm |
Tech Issues
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RE: New Jeep Gladiator TOAD
Honest question, what's the attraction to tying into the vehicle's lighting system, especially on anything that is CanBus or even later greater technology?
I can think of a couple different methods that are most likely cheaper, very simple and present no issues or considerations with messing with the OE electrical system.
Brakes, different story. I'd have those if really needed, but would doo what I could to not have to worry aboot that either.
Well, you need lights out back and there's only a few ways to get them:
* Add new bulbs into the tail light housings - requires new wires, bulb sockets, and drilling holes in the housing.
* Add external lighting - magnetic mount units. This doesn't work too well when the vehicle body is mostly aluminum. Then you've got to store them when not using them, and ensure that the wiring doesn't abrade the paint job when using them.
* Build a light bar that you somehow attach to the rear of the toad when needed - again you need to store it when not in use, and you still have to deal with the wire abrading the paint job.
* Use one of several "plug and play" wiring systems that use the existing wiring and lights - these work well, but as this topic shows, there are instances where specific vehicle issues pop up.
I looked at the CoolTech solution, which adds a switch to the existing wiring going to the rear of the vehicle - the lights are either powered from the toad, or from the RV, but impossible to power from both simultaneously because of the switch. I thought their kit was above my budget so I built my own: about $30 worth of parts and it's working well. I have a switch on my dash and put it in one position to tow and the other position to drive.
As for brakes - again I went with the simplest solution. NSA Ready Brute Elite tow bars have a surge brake built in to the tow bar so there is no need to add a portable box connected to the brake pedal, with a 12V line to keep the unit powered, or tie into the toad's hydraulic system. A simple cable from the brake pedal to the front of the toad is all that's required.
Other people prefer other solutions - that's the nice thing about this country: we have choices and aren't tied to a single solution!
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Alan_Hepburn
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01/06/23 10:36am |
Dinghy Towing
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RE: Park pet peeves, Park owner’s turn
Here's one for the park owners. Not controlling who occupies any particular site has been problematic a few times for me. Someone with a pop-up camper takes a site that can fit a big rig when there are other sites that will accommodate the pop-up. Yep, they pay the same price for the site as a big rig does, but if it's the only site that big rig can fit in and they can't then they go down the road and you lose revenue. I've noticed more parks are controlling sites by size of rig and that to me is a good thing.
We once had a situation where this was done by the campground. Our RV club had an outing at an upscale park, and we were the wagonmaster. THe park requested, and we provided, a list of attendees, with the size of each rig. We arrived and as the rest of the group arrived we found that the park had assigned one menber, with a 24 foot Class B, a 70 foot pull-through spot, and another member, with a 32 foot travel trailer, pulled by a Chevy Suburban, a 28 foot back-in spot! We went to the office to have these 2 members swap spots and were told "Not possible; they are already in the computer and we can't change the assignments."
We swapped them anyway. This park also insisted on inspecting the club house at the end of the outing, which is normal and expected, but they also had to count the chairs in the clubhouse "to make sure we didn't take any of them with us"...we haven't been back to that park since!
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Alan_Hepburn
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01/06/23 10:17am |
General RVing Issues
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RE: New Jeep Gladiator TOAD
This vehicle has a push button start. The first step to waking up the computer, is to step on the brake. My theory is each time the pedal is pressed by the aux braking system, part of the Jeep's computer system is activated, but not all of it, causing a fault.
You're on the right track: your Jeep, with the OEM LED tail lights, has an extra "sense" line that detects when the brake light is activated, and it causes one of the computers (I think it's the BCM, but I'm not sure) to wake up. CoolTech has designed a kit that deals with this issue - I don't know if anyone else has one to offer.
It's only an issue with the LED lighting - if you have the non-LED lights there's no problem.
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Alan_Hepburn
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01/05/23 11:44am |
Dinghy Towing
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RE: Park pet peeves, Park owner’s turn
The older I get, the more I realize it seems the avg IQ is somewhere around a cool room temperature!
I think it was George Carlin who noted "Think about how stupid the average person is, and then imagine that 1/2 the population is even more stupid"...
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Alan_Hepburn
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01/05/23 11:22am |
General RVing Issues
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RE: Directv ??? what are they doing???
Don’t hold your breath that 5G is a solution… it needs an antenna every mile for coverage which is possible in a large city but you can forget it in rural areas.
Even in cities it can be problematic - we have a cell tower about a mile from our house. We are on Verizon and I get 4 bars of 5G signal in our living room, and it drops to 3 bars of 4G when I walk about 10 feet down our hallway.
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Alan_Hepburn
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12/10/22 10:33am |
Technology Corner
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RE: RV Life Trip Wizard vs. Roadpass Pro
I've been using RVLIFE Trip Wizard for over 5 years now. At first I was hesitant to try it because I was coming from MS Streets & Trips, which was an offline solution and was hesitant to switch over to an online solution. But, once I gave it a try and got somewhat familiar with its capabilities I has hooked. Having everything available in a single package is nice. I can find campgrounds, various stores, gas stations, points of interest, etc. without have to have multiple browser tabs open which is really convenient. If you get stuck trying to figure out how to do a certain action their help desk staff will help you quickly and efficiently - they have a youtube channel with several good videos showing how to do things as well.
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Alan_Hepburn
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12/04/22 10:37am |
Roads and Routes
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