Tuesday, July 16, 2019
We had a long day on the road today. Our next destination was about 7 hours away.
Had a little trouble with the motor home today. I am copying and pasting Donald’s FB post explaining what happened today:
The trip today wasn’t without hiccups, but it was kind of cool how God provided. We’ve had a “manageable” overheating tendency in the RV for a while now. Manageable in that if you go slower, especially uphill, you can keep the temps down. We’ve been trying to isolate the issue, but hadn’t got it worked out yet. The RV has a hydraulic fan system that is much different than personal automobiles, and the hydraulic pump we had replaced a few months ago feeds this fan. It was after this maintenance that the overheating started. The shop also did a reprogram to the latest Cummins recommended program. After learning some more stuff and getting a photo-tachometer, I believe the hydraulic system is running right. So today I was driving and told Jeshuah that I was going to replace the thermostat next. Believe it or not, about 30 minutes later, going over a bridge, there was a bump in the road and the engine alarms went off, the temperature spiked and a low coolant alarm and check engine light came on. I have no idea how the bump affected it or if it was coincidence. Mind you we are in west Texas at exit 121 on I20 when this happened. For the most part, there is nothing in west Texas. But where God decided we needed to stop, there was a flying J at the bottom of the ramp. We coasted down off the interstate and into the parking lot. The RV shut off by a safety switch, but had enough momentum to get to a somewhat out of the way spot. It was a little hard to steer. Long story short – there was a Cummins shop about 4 miles away that had a thermostat in stock, and a Fleet Pride truck shop near that which had some hose that we needed (one sprung a leak), and a Walmart with the coolant that we use.
About 2 or so hours of running around and replacing parts, and we were back on the road.
It does appear that the thermostat improved the cooling, and it did not overheat on us again. But it did get up around 200 some whereas the thermostat is rated 180. Alarms come in around 215-220. These big trucks run different than cars, and you have to learn what is normal for that rig under load.
Thanks to God for putting us at a great spot for a failure to occur.