On the bus trip from hell !!! (aka How I nearly burned up my bus!!)

[gumpy]

Had to make a quick trip to CO for a funeral. I have not had the bus out on the road since Oct of last year, except to run around the block once to turn it around in the driveway.

I put new steering tires on last week and moved the old ones to the tag. Good.

Need to leave Monday morning, so I take the bus up to fuel it up on Sunday night, and then run it up the highway a ways to make sure it drives ok with the new tires. Good.
I notice that the bus A/C is not cooling. When I get home, I start looking at it and eventually discover the main suction tube has cracked again, and leaked out all my freon. Can't get
one on Sunday night, so will have to do without. Hopefully the house air will keep up. It's cool, so we'll see. More on that later...

Then my wife informs me the fridge is at 60*. I go in and see that the defroster switch is on. I switch it off and the fan starts running in the fridge. I think, "Problem solved" and go
about packing. Later I check it, and it's still at 60*. Great. Next morning, it's still at 60*. Not good.

Head out Monday morning. It starts raining as we leave and pretty much rained the first 300 miles continuously, then off and on the next 200 miles. The new electric wipers were a dream!!!
I was in heaven, despite the other problems looming over my head. Every time those wipers swished across the windshields intermittently, I grinned!  My cheeks hurt from grinning so much.

Then we get to Winnebago NE and fill up on fuel. I pull around to wait on my In-laws to get ready. They were in MN for my daughter's graduation and we're traveling with them back to CO.
So I'm sitting there waiting with the engine idling, and all of a sudden the bus interior begins to fill with smoke. It's thick and smells of burnt rubber. It's coming in the rear bedroom and I start
scrambling all over looking for an electrical short. I can't find anything. Inside, outside, inside again. I open the engine access covers and check the alternator. Open the engine doors and find
nothing. Then, my son says he smells it coming from the house A/C ducts, and I realize, the house A/C is running. Wasn't expecting that, although, I had set the thermostat earlier so that if
it heated up in the bus it would turn on automatically. So I shut that off and go check the bay where the A/C is. That's when I find a wire that is melted. An by melted, I mean there is no insulation left on parts of the wire.

Now here's where the mystery starts. This wire is a ground wire that runs from the battery negative terminal on the inverter to the Aqua-Hot ground stud. It runs along with a 12 volt wire and a
24 volt wire which run my heater and pumps. The 12 and 24 volt wires were fine, but the ground wire was fried!! I finally decided it was linked to the A/C, but for several hours, I was unable to
figure out why the ground wire had fried. I was running through scenarios where the A/C compressors were grounding through the frame rather than neutral, etc. Nothing made sense.

When we stopped at the city park campground in Hebron for the night, I finally had time to start digging into this problem.

To make a long story shorter, I finally figured out that I'm an idiot and Sean and many others are going to flame the crap out of me for this mistake, but it's important that I put it out here
so that others can learn from my mistakes.

Two years ago, I had to redo my electric system to accommodate the generator. I thought I had left enough room in the middle may for it, but it turned out not to be. So I had to move
the batteries from the front bay to the middle bay, abandon the battery slide box I built, and reposition the inverter in order to get the generator in the front bay. Last night, while looking
for the culprit of the fried wire, we realized that I had somehow forgotten to provide a ground lug to chassis ground and attach the house batteries to the chassis. In the original system, it
was welded to the battery tray frame, and a 4-0 cable connected the battery negative to chassis. In the new system, this was somehow omitted, and I never realized it!

The prevailing theory is that when the A/C turned on, it began running off the inverter, drawing down the house batteries at a high rate of current usage. I had the interconnect between
the coach batteries and house batteries active, so the alternator started ramping up it's output to compensate. Because there was no big cable to chassis ground from the house batteries,
the charging current took the only path it could find, and that was the 12 ga ground wire that ran to the Aquahot ground stud. The high charging amperage fried the little 12 ga wire
in short order, and because I have not completed the A/C intake plenum, the A/C sucked in all the resulting smoke and blew it all through the cabin, causing considerable panic. I temporarily
corrected the situation by connecting the negative side of the batteries to the frame using a set of jumper cables. This allowed me to get the A/C working again.

Needless to say, I have some work to do when I get home. There are a number of electrical issues that I've left half done for one reason or another and I will be taking time to go through them
all and resolve them once and for all. This will include a ground stud, and probably a negative cable from the house bank to the coach bank on the crossover system (currently I only have the
two positive terminals interconnected and was relying on the chassis to provide the negative, which added to the problem!).

Then, today, I took the fridge apart to try to figure out why it wasn't cooling. I found that the evaporator coils inside the freezer were completely iced up. I manually cycled the defrost 5 times, but
it's still iced up. Upon arriving in Pueblo, I unplugged the fridge, propped both doors open, and will try to get it defrosted and dried out in the next couple days before we head back home. If that
doesn't work, it's going to be scrap!!

Then, I have to fix my bus A/C when I get home. Probably a good time to replace the leaking seals in the compressor. Also, it appear there's a muffler on the suction line that is leaking, and from
what JD told me, it's a pain in the rear to fix that, but it will have to be fixed, too.

And, to top it all off, one of my windshield wipers would not turn on today. I found it was in a bind somehow and finally got it to work by forcing the arm to move from outside. Not sure what that's
about, yet, but it worked find after that.

Now, the plus side of the trip....  Let's see... The wipers were awesome when they worked in the rain yesterday. Definitely worth the money and time to retrofit. Have to try to figure out
why the one side stuck, though. Might be a linkage clearance problem. The insulation I put in the rear of the bus over the last few weeks while trying to get some interior work done really
quieted down the engine noise inside. It also was not as hot in the bedroom from engine heat when we stopped for the night. The little baby ceiling fan I put in the bedroom worked really
well last night to move air and blow a steady stream on us while in bed. In fact, it got a bit chilly in the middle of the night. And finally, the bus is running so sweet and riding so nicely on those
two new steer tires.

craig

[NewbeeMC9]

Dang Gumpy,




Thanks for sharing.

[John Z]

Just another day in a bus, huh Craig? Sounds like you got it figured out anyway. Have a better trip back.

[Nick Badame Refrig/ACC]

Hi Craig,

Hey, at least you were able to figure out the major problems...

Good catch on the ground lug to chassis! That could have gotten real bad if you didn't catch that quickly..

That is one of my major concerns with not using my bus as much as I have in the past.. [forgetting too much stuff]

Next time your refrig ices up too much, try a hair dryer to speed up the ice melt. I'm sure you'll figure out

what defrost part is bad soon..

Glad your and your bus are OK!
Nick-

[white-eagle]

Craig, you make me nervous when you make mistakes like that.  How am I, a mere mortal, supposed to feel comfortable with what i've done to my bus? 

i'll bet that was a fun time for a few minutes with smoke in the bedroom!  i for sure don't need that.  glad you found the issue in time not to have a fire, and sounds like an easy fix, even the permanant one.

Fran uses a hair dryer and the wet/dry vac to defrost in about 45 min.  Everythign into a cooler, then back in the fridge quick.  no fuss, no muss, and in this weather, it needs it every couple months.

thanks for sharing the info.  i'm sure some of us will be doublechecking our work also.

[robertglines1]

Thanks for shareing!Good to get reminders of problems that can arise...I sure do it every day;make a mistake that is

[jjrbus]

Is that a Samsung fridge??   They had some design issues.  I had one, it would work fine for a few  months and then ice up, defrost, then fine for a few months, then ice up again. After some web searching I dumped mine.    JIm

[DMoedave]

This is a great post as things like this are a real issue for people like me who for some reason start at one side of the bus working on the wiring and end up inside at 11pm dead tired and then start again the next night (sometimes on somthing unrelated to the previous nites work!) For sure on honest mistake but its good to get these things out there. My son works with me during the day and i am amzed at how many times he can just see past some problems while i am in crisis mode. The only people who dont make mistakes are the people who dont do anything.

[gumpy]

Good catch on the ground lug to chassis! That could have gotten real bad if you didn't catch that quickly..

Then thing is, it's been this way for 2 years, and I have been charging the house batteries off the coach alternator all along with no problems. I can't figure out how it did that
for 2 years without burning up that wire before. There is a #6 wire on the inverter ground post to the house batt negative, and the inverter is bolted to the frame, so it might have
been taking up the load. We typically don't see more than 100 amps (24 volt) going into the batteries, so that would have handled it just fine. If that's the case, though, why
did the 12 ga wire suddenly decide to self destruct? 

Still pondering all the variables in this and don't have all the answers yet.

[Gary LaBombard]

Craig,
I too agree with DMoedave & appreciate you sharing us all know of errors you or we may all make in our haste to get our conversions on the road and overlook short cuts or changes we may make in our conversions that may cost us our coach or worse our lives.  I know not everyone wants to let others know of instances like this to make them feel or look stupid but I bet Sean is also happy that a veteran busnut like yourself also can make even simple errors in their conversion process and sure not ashamed to admit it.  Like Dave said, it is good sometimes to have fresh eyes look at our conversion project without us getting insulted etc. or hurt feelings because someone else noticed our mistake, (That could save our lives or coach)!! 

Once not too long ago pointed out at a rally to one of our busnut friends that they had folding aluminum frame outside chairs laying on top of their battery bank, just laying on the terminals!!  I have no idea why they hadn't shorted out etc.!!  I cringed at the thought of what may happen.  But it was something that was done  very easily in haste that was not considered I believe and was surely corrected.  I do not get offended when someone questions what I have done so far on my Eagle & I assure you I consider what they may have seen and prioritize it to be changed or corrected.  I would look at anyones coach, (Eagles in particular) any time if (INVITED) to do so to look for any structural issues I may see that should be addressed.  This is not to insult the owner in any way but to help assure another bus owner that a new set of eyes has seen something that could be quite serious, Very soon.  I have seen some busnuts watch me while I am taking photos like I do at rallies. I do not get too involved with looking under their bus as I sure do not want to piss anyone off.  If you see or have seen me do this and were offended I apologize now as it was done only by quick glances of things that I have discovered on my own bus.  Just like a house roofer does if he comes to your house to visit.  He will look at your roof without even thinking as he enters from habit.  I have spent 7 years under my bus now!!  Bad habits are hard to break, be patient with me.

There is so much to this bussin hobby or what ever you wish to refer to it as.  These are our homes away from home so if you see us finally in the future, (I hope anyhow) with our coach in a possible dangerous situation let me know, I will have all the respect that I can muster to let you know I appreciate it as I probably over looked it. 

Your no IDIOT by any means Craig, I am glad for this post as there is still some wiring I have to look at for our AC that was done by the PO of our bus and I had never thought about until your post today. 

I know, I know another long worthless post by me.  Sorry.  But I do appreciate all mistakes others have found or made and pass on to the rest of us, not one of us are RV MFG. engineers that builds these things for a living and plan every detail.  Then again, I have seen some professional RV builds to be quite questionable!!

Thanks Craig, & Dave, look forward to seeing you guys at one of our rallies.
Gary

[Jriddle]

Well everything sounds like it will turn out OK I have just hooked up my house batteries. I was using two of the four batteries to test things out and had not ran my ground to the chassis till this last week end. I have not hooked them to the bus charging system yet but plan to do so. It will have to wait till I get back from Montana. Sorry about going to funeral that can add extra stress.

John

[Ace]

OK i kind of knew Craig was having troubles from what I gathered on facebook and glad to read here all is good!

I had a similar thing happen to me but it was ALL me (stupidity) when i wired up my CB linear. You know, those things need a pretty good size wire for the watts they put out especially when you flip the ON switch. All was good until then and i had one H3 full of smoke from a wire that i swear had insulation on it when i snaked it all through the bus and up to the dash where the linear was sitting. After the smoke cleared, and a really burnt and scraped set of hands from frantically pulling on what appeared to be on fire, a wire that was completely bare from one end to the other. Boy did I ever hear about that, especially when she got home and me trying to hide the fact that nothing happened. Sort of hard to hide burnt smelly plastic!
Flippin that switch was like setting off a detonator. It happened real fast!

[busshawg]

Thanks for sharing Craig, it does help to understand the do and don'ts. Thinking it was a good thing it was the A/C unit as not electrical problems are so quick to give us the warning signs.

Grant

[gumpy]

Well, this one really threw me. Partly because the smoke was in the bedroom, where just in the last couple months I installed a subpanel and ran some conduit and 120v wiring for the ceiling
fan and some outlets. Of course, I'm thinking it's something in the new stuff and was frantically pulling away all the personal belongings and such trying to find a wire that had shorted or
had been rubbed through.

Yeah, it was a few frantic moments in and around the coach as we were pulling open doors and pulling stuff out of the bays. A lot of people at the gas station were watching all this, with
no clue as there was no smoke outside. I'm sure they were thinking we were just a bunch of crazy people.

As for posting something that might make me look stupid, I have said all along, and especially with my web site, that I would post not only the good stuff, but also the bad. That include
mistakes I make from stupidity, such as this one. I've never claimed to be an expert in anything, and one of my shortfalls is that I often tend to miss or overlook details, usually to get
bit by it later on.

Also, it seems that lately, I've been having problems that occur in one system, but the effects are seen in another, so it takes awhile to piece together exactly what and why something
happened.

craig

[Stormcloud]

Craig:

We're sure glad that no one was injured.  I bet there have been more than a few of us doublechecking our grounding since reading your post.

Regards.

Mark