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… 

Finale? NOT! The Saga Continues…

Our day of departure from South Padre Island arrived with much trepidation. After all our issues after the winter storm, would everything work? What if it didn’t? Checkout was at 11 am so I got up early to prepare to go.

I packed the outdoor rugs and chairs, stowed all the power, water and sewer stuff. Sharon did her usual routine to ready the car for towing. I checked everything outside and then after going inside to pull the slides in … nothing. Slides won’t move… sigh.

Hurriedly I checked  fuses, breakers etc. and assume I have a relay problem. With no time to spare I called a mobile tech who came out to at least jump the relays to make them all come in. I fired up the engine and then the jacks won’t come up.  Really!!! Then I noticed the low power light and see the batteries weren’t ready. When the light went out the jacks came up so at least we could leave and I would figure out the slides later… oh, well.

As we start driving the RV out of the park, the first thing I notice is that the speedometer isn’t working. WTF!!! Really? Well at least I notice the engine is running fine other than it had a rough idle before we left. We continued on. Just outside of of Port Isabel we came upon a stretch of road where I was able to pick up speed.

Watching my RPM’s I knew we were going about 60 mph. I switched on the cruise control and guess what? Yep, you guessed it… it didn’t work! At least we only had 50 miles to go to our next park since I wanted to stay in the valley to be close to the Freightliner shop who worked on our rig. Now I was sure glad we chose to do that.

Before we finally got to the next park we also discovered the exhaust brake wasn’t working either. As we made our way to our assigned site at the RV park, we discover the site was nearly impossible to get into, but, we did. I jumped the slide relays to pull the slides out and had the jacks go down smoothly, so now it was time to call Freightliner back.

I called service who informed me that it would cost more to send the tech back out until I sternly reminded them their last job wasn’t done yet and simply needed to be finished. They agreed to send out a tech the next day.

Tuesday morning we saw our friendly tech, who we now are on first name basis with, especially after Sharon gave him some of her homemade apple crumble last time he worked on our RV. Anyhow he spent about three hours checking each and every ECM setting that I had Freightliner send them to doublecheck each setting in my newly installed ECM to ensure they were correct.

After uploading the new program settings to our ECM we were pleased to hear the idle was perfect with the new settings. Now we were hopeful that upon taking it out for a spin all the other issues would be resolved as well.  Unfortunately it did not happen. After several hours of more troubleshooting the recommendation was to bring it to the shop in the morning…

So here we are…

NOTE:  We are currently in Pharr, Texas at the Tip O Texas RV Park, next up Rockport Texas…