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General Discussion / Re: Replace Seats???

« on: September 30, 2024, 09:18:45 am »

I also recived input from this outfit; they make custom covers to your detailed measurements.
But only in vinyl, which I am not attracted to...

[https://rvseatcovers.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/MEASUREMENTS.pdf]

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General Discussion / Re: Replace Seats???

« on: September 30, 2024, 09:00:46 am »

To tie off my inputs on this thread, I backed off from replacing the seats.
I had done an email blast to makers of seat covers, and got a suitable reply from Covercraft... they make one generic cover for captains chairs.  Their only seatcover slated for RVs.  The seat covers are fine, they fit pretty well; the covers for the armrests are a joke.  But $118 each was preferable to $1000 each to replace seats.
[https://www.covercraft.com/product/rv-seatglove/SVR]

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General Discussion / Re: Onan 4000 Generator - Want To Replace - Alternative?

« on: August 19, 2024, 12:03:00 am »

Hi Ron...  So on our spring trip this year, I installed the cut-off valve you had suggested in an earlier thread.  I think I added a can of Sea Foam rather than Sta-Bil, I had never used that, and noted the can says it can be used as both cleaner and stabilizer.  And I followed all the other suggestions from the Cummins tech, except #1.

The first couple years I had my PC, I was filling the fuel tank prior to going into storage, as he suggested.  After a couple years, I noticed that my mileage on that first tank was always significantly worse, like 7 mpg.  Then from the 2nd tank onward, it would be more like 9 mpg.
So I started leaving the tank as empty as possible, rather than full, and the first stop coming out of storage was to fill the tank, at which time I would also add some Techron injector cleaner or equivalent.  That seemed to help the low mileage on the first tank, which was 6-month old fuel at that point.

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General Discussion / Re: Sony backup camera system

« on: August 01, 2024, 08:31:35 pm »

Thank you Jimmer for the input.  I'll look into the Tadi Brothers setup.
Did you just splice into the existing Sony cable (at camera and monitor) to pick up the +12V and grounds?

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General Discussion / Sony backup camera system

« on: July 27, 2024, 11:09:59 am »

I started getting the "blue screen of death" on my Sony backup monitor system a few years ago.  It is intermittant, and if I have the camera on while driving, seems like it is affected by road conditions.  A "bump" will make it go blue, another bump will bring it back.  If I just leave it on, it will eventually come back again.  It seems to be getting more prevalent over time.

I think it is an intermittant connection either in the wiring or the camera itself... the wiring failure could be loss of +12V or ground to the camera, or the video signal connection. The blue screen is indicating the monitor is not receiving a video signal. I don't think it is to do with the monitor, since it still displays the blue screen.  The question is WHERE?  The cable into both the monitor and camera is not connectorized, so I assume there is a connector above the monitor, behind the TV, and another connector inside the top-rear of the RV, behind the bathroom cabinet.  Or the issue could be inside the camera itself, which seems most likely since it is out in the elements. 

I tapped on the camera and jiggled cables, while my wife watched the monitor, and could not duplicate the problem that way.

Has anyone out there encountered this?

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General Discussion / Re: Microwave Face trim cracking-2009 2359

« on: July 27, 2024, 10:57:18 am »

In addition to being trim, that faceplate (via the four steel straps) is also the only thing holding the oven in place.  Replacing it with wood face trim would also entail figuring out how to secure the oven from moving around!!

Jimmer mentioned discovering the front feet of his oven were up in the air.  I would think it essential to ensure the weight of the oven is fully supported by the wood plates underneath it, and the steel straps between the trimplate and back of the oven are then just keeping it in place.  Those are the only thing keeping the oven from bouncing around on a rough road.

Having just replaced my oven with a GE model, I put the new oven into the cabinet without faceplate and measured how much I needed to add underneath to bring it up to the appropriate level.  The GE has shorter feet, by about 1/2", so I added 1/2" plywood plates on top of the existing riser plates.  The oven and trimplate should then slide into the cabinet, and the trimplate screws installed, without them needing to bear any weight of the oven.  Other than the stress of holding the oven solid, which is probably where the cracking originates, on rough roads or potholes.

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General Discussion / Re: Replace Seats???

« on: July 25, 2024, 05:36:51 pm »

A complication I have, which most others don't, is that we live in Hawaii.  The PC is stored (indoors) in Tualatin Oregon, south of Portland.  I had only been talking with rebuild shops in the Portland area, because we do two trips per year, spring and fall, of 6-8 weeks each.  We don't want to have to hang around Portland while the seats were being recovered, so were asking shops if we could drop off the seats at the end of one trip and pick them up again at the beginning of our next trip.  Nobody wanted to do that. 

And if we have to "hang around" while the seats are being recovered, the cost of hotel/rental car/restaurants very quickly exceeds the cost difference for new replacement seats.  When we're on the mainland, the PC is where we live.   Much easier if you live on the mainland and can find a shop near where you live.

I'm going with the place in Lake Havasu City; new seats which will be a simple swap.  I asked them about the issue Barry and Sue had posted... that the replacement seats they had looked into would not swivel.  I'm speculating that shop maybe focused on seats for cars, vans and pickup trucks, and the issue might be their seatback didn't come up to the full vertical upright.  The owner of this shop confirmed that is an issue.  Seats that are slated for an F450, for instance, don't need to come to full upright (they don't swivel) and that is necessary for them to work in the PC swivel application.  His seats all not only come to full upright, but go a little more, so the seatback is over the seat cushion during the swivel.  He said he has never had an instance of their seats having that problem (and he's been in business since 1967.)

He said with our seat bases, all we need to do is remove the seat, take the slide off the bottom of the old seat, bolt it onto the new seat, and reinstall.  There was no seat airbag in 2010 so we don't have that harness, and the seatbelt receptacle is attached to the base, not to the seat, so no issue with that harness.  Bottom line, he said the swap is "very simple."   

It was pure serendipity that we had already scheduled our fall trip to include a visit to the Grand Canyon, and go west from there, so that we will be passing by just 25 miles north of Lake Havasu.

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General Discussion / Re: Replace Combo Oven - DONE!!

« on: July 25, 2024, 03:49:31 pm »

Well, regarding the decision to add fans... there were several factors.

The original oven had worked fine for nearly 14 years, 2010 thru 2023.  I purchased this rv in 2016, so can't speak to it's first 6 years, but our vast majority use of the oven was as microwave.  Because that is such a short cooktime, the oven and cabinet don't really get hot.  We would mostly use convection mode for baking the refrigerated Pillsbury rolls, which only take about 10 minutes after preheat... again not too bad.

The oven died when we were baking a frozen casserole dinner, which specified to bake at 400 degrees for 60 minutes, after pre-heating.  High temp for a long time.  The cabinet was feeling hot at that time, and it appeared that the final failure mode was preceded by a failure of the thermostat and/or high temp limit switch... the casserole was charred, even though the cooktime was not completed, so the oven had gone into a full-on mode until the fusible links in the power supply melted.

There was online debate in my post last fall about how I could replace the fusible links in the power supply, but I felt "something else caused those to melt."  New fusible links won't fix the root cause.

So (1) I dumped the dead oven, keeping the trimplate with hopes I could reuse it, and started my search for a replacement oven.  The GE is a near perfect fit.  BTW, I got it at Best Buy in May, for $200.  Even if it has a shorter life, that's very economical compared to the cost of a Sharp.
Reason #2, when the oven is removed, it was a pretty easy project to install the muffin fans.  Yes, there are slots in the trimplate, but nothing really to push the hot air out of the cabinet.  Now the fans draw in cool air through the open pantry door, and "push" the hot air out the front.  That certainly can't hurt.

Reason #3... I already had the fans, leftover from a prior project!!

I mentioned in the post we keep the fans running after baking until the oven cools down.  This GE oven, if the door is ajar after baking, the display says HOT OVEN.  So we leave the door ajar and fans running until that display goes away.

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General Discussion / Replace Combo Oven - DONE!!

« on: July 23, 2024, 05:19:57 pm »

I posted last fall that our combo microwave/convention oven had died, and the new Sharp models do not fit the original trim plate.  After much searching I found a GE oven (Model JES1109RRSS), which has all the features of the Sharp R820JS, plus an Air Fry mode!!  Internal size is up, from 0.9 to 1.0 cu.ft., and power is up from 900 watts to 1050 watts.  Width of the GE is the same, the door height is 1/4" less and total depth is 3" less than the Sharp model.  The box depth is a bit more than 1" less, which required an easy adjustment fix for the original steel brace brackets on the trimplate. The "feet" of the new oven are shorter, which required a 1/2" plywood riser plate to be added on top of the existing mounting foot plates in the cabinet.  The only trimplate mod was to the bottom flange of the opening.  The new oven has a "popout" on the bottom, close to the door, which that flange on the trimplate bumped into.  Simple fix was to just carefully "roll" the back 1/4" edge of that flange downward so it fits.
I chose to also modify the cabinet to add a couple "muffin fans" which we had used extensively to cool rack-mounted electronic equipment back when I worked for Motorola.  They are not extremely high airflow, but are quiet, and have very good bearings, rated for 60,000 hours.  They ran 24/7 in the equipment we sold to the military.  I chose to do this because there isn't really any airflow around the Sharp oven, other than what seeps through the slots in the trimplate.  [[https://www.flickr.com/photos/201182969@N08/][/See photos here.]

Our original wardrobe cabinet above the passenger bunk was previously modified to be a pantry; that is where I installed the fans.  I used a 4 1/4" hole saw to cut the holes in the wall separating the oven cabinet from our pantry cabinet.  I felt the holesaw could splinter the wall as it went through, so I had prepped a set of wood plates for each hole, one plate on each side of the wall, with the corner holes matching those of the fans.  With those plates clamped tightly to the wall, the holesaw made a clean cut (but did create copius sawdust!)  Then removed the plates and installed the fans.  I added a surface mount switchbox from HD and wired the fans/switch to plug into the existing duplex outlet above the right side of the microwave.  We use the fans only when in convection oven mode, which is when it gets pretty hot in the oven cabinet.  Nuking a cup of coffee does not require using the fans.  When we use convection bake, we open the pantry door, the fans draw in air through there, around the oven and exhaust out through the slits in the trimplate (plus the added 1/4" space at top due to shorter face.)  And then we continue to run the fans until the oven cools down.

Those steel brackets attached to the trimplate connected to 4 existing screws in the back of the original Sharp oven.  Surprisingly, the GE oven has four existing screws in almost the same locations.  Because the GE oven box is 1 1/8" shorter than the Sharp, plus about an inch different in location, I used a 1" and a 1 1/2" corner bracket for each brace bracket, put together back-to back to relocate the attachment point.  Worked great.

NOTE:  if you've never done this... the oven is attached to the trimplate via those steel brackets, BEFORE the oven is installed.  You will realize this when you try to remove the trimplate, and discover the oven wants to come out with it!  Takes two to do the install, #1 to hold the oven/trimplate up while #2 gets the power cord situated and plugged into the outlet.  Then slide the oven into the hole.
We completed the install over Memorial Day weekend, and then did our 7 week "spring trip".  All aspects worked great, looks great.  DONE !!!

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General Discussion / Re: Replace Seats???

« on: July 21, 2024, 07:01:24 pm »

Thank you Barry and Sue... I will check that... the dimensions on their seats look the same as what we have now.
Also, I've sent them photos of our pedestals, with this response:  Our passenger seat is a swivel base, she said they used to manufature the same base and virtually any Ford seat will mate up with it.  It shouldn't be a problem, unless the seatback doesn't come up to full upright.  But if it didn't swivel, I would get that seat anyway.  We virtually never use the swivel function.
The driver base (6-way power) is a standard Norco base, made in Indiana and is used in a great many of the motorhomes.  She said every one of the seat models they manufacture are a very simple bolt-on swap to our existing bases.

I'm not at all interested in dealing with Paul's, because when I talked to him last year he said "Go Away.  I can't help you."  Plus driving to Indiana would cost more for gas than purchasing new seats in the West.

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General Discussion / Re: Replace Seats???

« on: July 19, 2024, 07:52:49 pm »

Thank you Barry & Sue!!

I've been in contact with a business in Lake Havasu, AZ [https://discountvantruck.com/] who make van and truck seats.  She said they've made many seats to replace the peeling problem, because the reupholstery is so labor intensive, it's actually more economical to simply replace the seat.  All of their seats are compatible with the Ford pedestals (which she said are made in Indiana, so even if the chassis came with a simple mount for the plastic chair, it's possible that Paul's would have used the Ford pedestal to make the original seat.)

I am coincidentally going to be traveling west on I-40 in early October, so will be passing by about 20 miles north of them... going to pursue that option.

Rick and Erika

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General Discussion / Replace Seats???

« on: July 18, 2024, 08:23:10 pm »

Aloha!!  We have a 2010 PC, 2551, with the horribly peeling seats.  Surprisingly, I've not located an upholstery shop with any interest in either recovering the seats, or making slip-on seat covers.  The fact that they are 3rd party seats (from Paul's) rather than Ford OEM seems to scare them off.  It would probably require them to remove the existing seat covers, and use those for patterns.  It also would tie up the motorhome for an extended time while they do this.  Every shop I talked to says NO.
And please don't suggest going back to Paul... I tried.  He wants nothing to do with them, obviously he had a major falling out with the factory, now hates the mention of Phoenix Cruiser.  Said he has nothing to do with Phoenix Cruiser anymore, and has no desire to do so.

I've seen a few posts stating the pedestals are Ford OEM, with Ford part numbers on them.  I haven't verified this myself yet.  (We live in Hawaii and the motorhome is stored in Oregon.)
Seems like if the pedestals are from Ford, I should be able to buy original Ford seats for an E450 and bolt them on.

Has anyone out there tried this?

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General Discussion / Re: My Brother Seeks A PC Like Ours - Anyone Selling a 2350 or 2351?

« on: July 15, 2024, 05:31:22 pm »

Hi Ron... I'd like to chat with you on a different topic, off the full forum site.
Can you contact me via email?
rickjohn.mokuleia@gmail.com

Rick John
Hilo, Hawaii

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General Discussion / Re: Peeling Seats

« on: November 11, 2023, 12:30:44 pm »

Ron, my seats look way worse than that, and so far as I know they have never been treated with a conditioner, so I don't think that is at fault.  Mine are also peeling the the sides and backs, where there is little to no "human contact."
I think it is just crappy material, and agree with you that cloth is the answer.  I've never liked leather or vinyl anyway, always have preferred cloth seats. 

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General Discussion / Re: 2007 Ford E350-V10 PC-2350 - After 2 Years Stored In Climate-Controlled Garage

« on: October 17, 2023, 09:54:53 pm »

Aloha... this reply is for "Taildragger."
My runtime meter for the generator failed a few years ago.  No numbers showing.

I found a direct (electromechanical) replacement on Amazon, "Honeywell Hobbs Boat Hour Meter 169635."
Cost $13 and replacement time was like 15 minutes.

Rick John