Everything is finally all fixed!!! Halleluiah!!!

As mentioned in our previous blog, we had no choice but to take our RV over to the Doggett Freightliner shop in Harlingen. Prior to that appointment I spent some time trying to solve our slide out issues. As I previously described, while trying to leave South Padre Island where we discovered the slides would not come in, I learned from a RV tech how to jump the slide relay to get the slides to work. After settling in at a park in Harlingen, I began troubleshooting our slide out wiring.

I discovered two wires not connected to anything in the compartment where a lot of our electronics are stored. One was a red wire that I was using to jump the relay with and I knew it belonged somewhere. It had a tab on the end designed to to attach to something. I was pretty sure it needed to go to the Slideout Inhibitor. However, the green wire I found had a label that said it was the Parking Brake Ground and I had no idea where it went.

The green wire had no end on it but it appeared as if it had broken off/pulled out of somewhere.  I spoke with Don Boyd at Tiffin (a fellow who has helped me out numerous times). He was able to send me an image of what the wiring for the Slideout Inhibitor was for our rig. Upon inspection it was certain where the red wire went but the green wire was still elusive. Also the picture showed a white wire attached to the Slideout Inhibitor that I couldn’t find anywhere.

Speaking with Don Boyd again we finally determined that my green wire and the white wire in the picture were the same. Therefore I attached a female spade terminal to the end of the green wire and put it where the white wire in the photo went. I also attached the red wire to where the photo showed it should be. WOW!!! The slides now all work as they are supposed to. Thanks Don at Tiffin for your invaluable assistance! I assumed that these wires were accidentally knocked out of place during our inverter installation.

The next day was our appointed time to address our other tribulations so we stowed away all of our stuff and prepped the RV for its move over to Pharr, Texas. Wonderfully all the slides came in as designed and the jacks were brought up smoothly. We began to prepare ourselves mentally for a long day awaiting diagnosis and repair at Doggett Freightliner. We started up the engine,hooked up the car and hit the road for the short 40 mile drive to Pharr, Texas.

As we merged onto the highway I became aware that the transmission was shifting incorrectly and the engine would hang at 2700 RPMs before finally shifting to the next gear. Sigh…

We managed to make it to Doggett and we checked in promptly at 8:00 am hoping to allow plenty of time to fix our woes. While there we decided to have them perform our annual preventative maintenance as well if time permitted. To take our minds off the RV problems I told Sharon we should plan a half day trip over to Benson Palm State Park about 30 minutes away and spend the morning hiking/birding.

We had a great hike where we saw lots of birds and were happy to have the distraction from the stress. On our way back to the RV to check on its progress, we made a stop at Delia's Tamales for some lunch and really enjoyed the best spicy pork tamales we have ever had in our lives. After lunch we drove back to Doggett.

After an hour I called to ask about progress and the service manager told me she had just received our paperwork from the technician and everything was now working properly. Wow, were we ever excited to hear that news. Rightfully they explained there was no charge for anything other than the preventative maintenance. It turned out our whole problem was the ECM settings were never correct, just as I thought!

Once the technician found the correct program settings for our ECM everything wrong was resolved. Halleluiah!  After paying the bill we took her for a test drive to ensure everything worked as advertised and were very pleased to report to them that all was now as it should be.

Thinking the repair would take hours (or days) to fix we had planned a stay right around the corner from Doggett Freightliner at Tip O' Texas RV Resort. We had planned only a one night stay so we could move on to our next location in Rockport Texas but after our ordeal we added another day to simply relax!. Finally our trials and tribulations are over…

NOTE:  We are currently at Angler’s Retreat in Rockport Texas…