Sometimes it's useful being a geek - cougarguard.com — unofficial BYU Cougars / LDS sports, football, basketball forum and message board

FMCoug · 07-14-2007, 01:47 AM

So we go to pull out of the campground in Durango this morning and the motorhome won't start. Ended up spending about 3 hours troubleshooting the battery disconnect (switch to avoid draining the chassis battery when you're parked). Turns out the solenoid was bad. Between sending Mrs. FM to Home Depot for some wire, a multimeter, and various connectors and spending a fair amount of time on the phone with the service manager at the dealer, I was able to get it bypassed and we're back on the road. The only slightly disturbing part was that the wire she got was only 14 gauge ... this is to bypass a 30A solenoid that has normal (say #4 or so) battery wires going in and out of it. So I just left the cover off to do some air cooling until I got to Wal-Mart and bought a battery cable to use.

There was no RV shop in town with the right parts to "fix it" correctly and nobody who could have even looked at it until Monday. So like I said, geekiness helps from time to time.

We're now camped just outside of Mesa Verde NP and headed there tomorrow. Debating staying in the area for another day and heading home Monday AM. If you had one day for far Southern Utah, what would you do? Canyonland/Arches? Monument Valley? Other?

07-14-2007, 01:47 AM	#1
FMCoug Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Kaysville, UT Posts: 3,151	Sometimes it's useful being a geek So we go to pull out of the campground in Durango this morning and the motorhome won't start. Ended up spending about 3 hours troubleshooting the battery disconnect (switch to avoid draining the chassis battery when you're parked). Turns out the solenoid was bad. Between sending Mrs. FM to Home Depot for some wire, a multimeter, and various connectors and spending a fair amount of time on the phone with the service manager at the dealer, I was able to get it bypassed and we're back on the road. The only slightly disturbing part was that the wire she got was only 14 gauge ... this is to bypass a 30A solenoid that has normal (say #4 or so) battery wires going in and out of it. So I just left the cover off to do some air cooling until I got to Wal-Mart and bought a battery cable to use. There was no RV shop in town with the right parts to "fix it" correctly and nobody who could have even looked at it until Monday. So like I said, geekiness helps from time to time. We're now camped just outside of Mesa Verde NP and headed there tomorrow. Debating staying in the area for another day and heading home Monday AM. If you had one day for far Southern Utah, what would you do? Canyonland/Arches? Monument Valley? Other?