Eagle conversion

[musicman]

Hi guys I have a 1989 Eagle 8v92 in excellent condition ,It had been in Tx all its life and less than 200K, Frame is excellent..Im going to convert it and Im one to plan things out in my head,then put it on paper and review it then see if its going to work..Ive designed my coach..Layed it all out on paper..Ive gutted the coach seats and windows plus raised the roof 8 inches...so far so good..I can install the basement a/c,toilet sinks,wiring and everything else..Heres my problem.Im going to wire it like a house then to a breaker box,My problem is wiring the breaker box in to the generator and converter and all that stuff...Ive thought about it so long Ive about to blow a fuse..Also hooking in the water tanks for drinking water and holding tanks..I can build the insides to look like a million dollars but hooking in the guts has me confused...I dont plan on doing any boon-docking So do I need batteries except for cranking..If they dont have power so I can plug in or run my generator Im not staying..I know this is alot but any help would be greatly appreciated

[NJT5047]

Probably be a good idea to add a couple house batts.  If some 12V device is left on overnight at least you won't be walking.  You have to know where you're camping...some don't allow genset beyond certain hours....some require stacks (vertical genset exhaust), and some are just free-for-alls.  Obviously, most campgrounds will have power poles.  So if you go from pole to pole...you could get by without much water capacity or house batteries. 
Being able to parallel your house batteries could get you on the road too.  I suppose one could carry the "redundancy" thing to the extreme?   
Sounds like you have it sorted out.   I'd set aside some room for house batts just in case...you may wish to sell the coach, and typically, house batts are considered a necessity.   I'd also keep the genset on a separate battery...with capacity to parallel to the cranking batteries so that the genset could be cranked in the event of generator battery failure...I have that ability...it called jumper cables.  However, the wiring is in place for generator parallel....it's the old AC condensor fan motor cable.  Plenty big enough.  One of these days I'll figure out which switch operates the cable.    
Inverters and generators are boarderline incompatible.  The inverter will come with detailed instructions for installation.  50 pages of instructions.
Cheers, JR

[musicman]

After I went brain dead and awoke Ive decided to add batteries...In case I have a OOPs moment I wont be stranded..Ive already gotten an e-mail from this board telling me where to find out how to hook the bus guts up..lol...Im just gonna take it nice and slow..Ive dreamed of doing this and been saving for 10 yrs ...Now its time to put it into action

[TomC]

Don't forget about looking at marine (boat) parts.  Most of the time the marine parts are much better made than the similar part made for RV's.  While I made my generator/land line switch, marine stores usually have a reallly nice rotary switch that is land line, off, generator.  Wiring the items you want to be run by the inverter should have a separate breaker box that is powered from the main breaker through a 30amp (or whatever your inverter takes) breaker.  Then you'll have essentially three power sources for the 120vac (power pole, generator, inverter) and three sources for 12v (inverter/charger, batteries, main engine alternator).  Always good to have more than one way to do a job.  Good Luck, TomC

[pvcces]

musicman, if you don't put in some DC wiring, you're going to miss a big part of what makes RVing so much fun. It sounds like you've never lived in a situation where you were not hooked to the grid and you still had most everything operational.

If you get a decent inverter, it will do a lot of the work for you. An electrician can hook it up for you. And once you're set up, you can even buddy plug. That would let just one of you provide the AC power for two of you. You can be either producing the power or the other rig can.

Good luck with your conversion.

Tom Caffrey
Suncatcher
Ketchikan, Alaska