THE REST of the Story!

Before Christmas, we promised a report on the needed repairs for Little House when we had the time to write one.  This blog post is from Hank.


I suspect you all know by now that we have had a recent problem with Little House.  As Paul Harvey used to say - here is "The Rest of the Story":

We've had a  slow leak from the area around the Aqua-Hot bay, so in November, we made an appointment with Coachcraft by MacDonald in Columbus, GA to fix the problem before we went to Alabama for the holidays.  In the meantime, we spent several weeks hanging out in Unadilla, GA.

While we were at the Unadilla, GA campground the 2nd week of December, our coach started acting like the ignition key was being turned on, dash lights, idiot lights, beepers, etc coming on - when in reality it was turned off.  Turning the ignition key on and off made no difference.  Starting the engine made no difference except that the big diesel engine started fine and purred like a kitten.  Turning the key back off made no difference - but the engine was still purring with the key off!

To stop the engine,  I could turn of the mechanic's safety switch at the motor, but the dashboard functions were all still illuminated, dash fan blowing, etc. so I had to find the ignition fuse to turn those functions off.  After consultation with Spartan service (chassis manufacturer)  on the phone, the problem was suspected to be a short or ground in the ignition key wiring between the dash and the ECM (Engine Control Module).  Since the next trip we were planning to make was to the repair shop anyway this would not present a problem - we would just have them look at this while we were there.  PIE IN THE SKY!

THE GREMLINS  ATTACK WITH A VENGEANCE!

We left the campground Monday morning December 17th without incident as expected and headed for Columbus via non interstate route (always my preference) as planned.  Once we got on a major highway I turned on the cruise control.   Eventually I had to touch the brake to slow for traffic which suspended cruise as expected - but the resume button did not work.  I was able to play around with the buttons (on the steering wheel) and get it back on - but the set, cancel, and resume buttons didn't seem to work as expected.  I eventually found that the cancel button was now functioning as the set button so that worked for awhile but eventually all of the buttons stopped working.  A bit later I noticed that the button that flashes the headlights (courtesy flash?) was no longer working, and shortly afterward the cruise control was not working at all.   I was now concerned that it may decide to work in resume mode causing it to accelerate, and if the cancel button was not working, and I am not able to turn the motor off........

I decided to bypass the planned lunch and fuel stops and go directly to the service facility without passing go :-)   Our appointment was for Tuesday morning so we settled into our parking space with electric hookups after giving John Hughes, service manager, our list of woes.

During the next few days as they were working on the coach, many more Gremlins started showing up and they were not able to find the cause of any of the problems .

• Ignition key still will not shut off motor but the other effects of turning off and on seem to vary.
• The slide-outs will work regardless of ignition key (should ONLY work when key is on)
• Door steps sometimes work and sometimes don't.
• If we level with jacks - they sometimes decide to retract at random times - a nuisance at 4:00 AM !
• The key-fob will no longer lock the door although it will unlock it.
• The key fob will no longer operate the basement compartment door locks.
• The air-pressure operated safety travel door lock will not release - but the manual on/off for that still works so we can still open te door :-)
• The ATC is off and alarms when the ignition key is turned on but can be turned on manually (should come up on by default).
• The leveling system sometimes flashes a parking brake alarm, even though the brake is set.
• Turning ignition key off still doesn't turn the dash functions off, but turning it back on they all go off and then restart.

And many of these were  intermittent so there was no way to know which ones will act up at any time - and each day seemed to bring new gremlins!

SO - they were bringing the coach into the shop each morning at 7 AM which meant we were up by 6 AM to get it ready to move! There were several calls to Spartan for advice, and to get service diagrams for various systems.

On Thursday, Dec. 20, we had to empty part of the under-bed storage so they could open up the bedroom floor to access the ECM mounted above the motor.
 
As of Friday morning, Dec. 21,  they thought they had narrowed the problem down to a specific wire bundle that runs from the front of the coach to the engine compartment but still had to find where along the route of that bundle the problem might be.  There were still several small items we wanted them to work on (the original reason for our service appointment) and since they were off Sat, Sun, Mon, Tue for each of the next two holiday weekends we decided to leave Little House there giving them time to do a thorough job while we stayed with our daughter, Debbie and her husband, Robert in Montevallo, AL for the holidays.

It took a while to gather all of the  needed items for the next two weeks of living along with various holiday supplies, and then to load them into the car. We left Columbus about 7:30 A.M. on Dec. 21st after a week of early days and restless nights.  We definitely needed "a little Christmas"!

Later that afternoon,  John Hughes called us to let us know they had found the problem to be in a 50 pin connector in the previously suspected cable on the underside of the motor.  It had apparently been wet (possibly from road water splash from the wheels) and moisture had created some high resistance shorting which in turn caused overheating and basically corroding and melting plastic connector.  That sounds like a design problem to me!  Such connectors in motorhomes are notorious for having this type of problem and there are many miles of wiring and dozens of such connectors throughout the coach.  The most common solution is to just replace the connector with good old fashioned soldered connections - which was exactly what the repair shop did.  They said the problems all had disappeared but they would do some road testing to make sure, and will complete the remaining items between now and New Years day.  On Dec. 28, John Hughes called to say that two road tests were made without issues, other than the right camera was no longer working (our rear camera failed several months ago), but that wasn't related to our other problems. Little House would be ready for us whenever we returned to Columbus.

In the mean time we got to spend quality time with family and friends in Alabama.  We returned to Columbus on January 2nd, arriving just before closing time.  After checking on the list of repairs, we unloaded the car, and settled in for another night to make sure the last of the Gremlins were gone.  Thursday, Jan. 3rd, we happily hooked up the car and started our trek to Florida for two months of warmer weather (we hope) and meeting up with many friends.

We can't say enough good things about the service and people at Coachcraft, and would highly recommend them to others.