RV Fridge and Slideout Issues after a Short Visit to Ajo, AZ

 Monday, February 3

Rode south on AZ Highway 85 the 12 miles or so to the small town of Ajo.

Ended up just getting gas for the spare gas can and some pics of the main church along with the arches in the town's main plaza.

The church entrance was locked.  Unusual.

That night, I woke for the usual trip to the bathroom and noticed that the fridge status lights were flashing.  Not good.  Usually, this meant that I had to reset the control board via an published process.  

Didn't think much of it as it was 3:30 AM, and I figured I'd run the reset process in daylight when I next woke up.

This would be the start of a rather lengthy and sometimes frustrating process of troubleshooting.  The reset procedure didn't work, and things started warming up in the fridge.

I prematurely gave up at this point and started talking to a mobile RV repair service in Casa Grande.  I arranged to meet their tech there at 4PM and started breaking down camp to move.

That's when I discovered what appears to be a related issue.  The slideout switch wasn't working to activate the motor to bring in the slideout!

Obviously, I had to cancel the appointment.  A call to CoachNet got me in touch with a tech who suggested attaching a battery to the slideout motor, bypassing the relay/switch.  This worked using jumper cables to the house battery and I got the slideout back in.

This event highlighted to me that I didn't know how to manually override the slideout.

I finished packing and drove the VRRV the 30 miles or so to Gila Bend, AZ where I thought I'd meet with the repair tech the next day.

Once I got there though, I realized after another call to CoachNet that since I was no longer "stranded" with a stuck slideout, they'd not call it a service call and I was now responsible for the $150 charge for a tech to just come out, in addition all hourly charges and parts costs.  Before, when they considered me stranded, they'd have covered the $150 cost.

Since it was all now on me, I decided I'd stick with the tech I'd engaged beforehand and sent a text when I set up camp in BLM land just SE of Gila Bend.

That evening, RichardM came to the rescue of the food in the warming fridge.  He suggested running a bypass wire to supply 12 volts to the control board.  I hooked up test leads to the nearby house battery and the board and voila, the fridge was working again!

I would wake during the night, and realize a possible way to manually override the slideout.  This was confirmed in the morning when I found this video on Youtube: LINK.  Note to self, my slideout uses the Below Floor Mount RV Slide system and the components involved are made by Power Gear (bought by Lippert).

I tried it out and yep, I was able to move the slideout to the out position with very little trouble/effort.  A dedicated wrench is to be bought soon to be kept for just this purpose.  I didn't have one wide enough so I used channel locks.

Further troubleshooting also revealed the most likely cause of why the slideout switch wasn't working:

The burn marks pretty much settle the cause.

I was able to find what I believe is a replacement controller on Amazon and it's being shipped to a locker location in Catalina, AZ.  

I drove to Catalina, north of Tucson, and found a nice campsite near where I'd previously camped with Martha.  I used the wires bypass again to bring the slideout as its easier than manually doing it.

I also permanently installed the bypass wire for the fridge's control board.  I drove to Catalina from Gila Bend with the test leads in place but of course that wasn't a good permanent solution.

The controller will arrive by 10PM today, Thursday according to Amazon.  Stayed tuned.

Lessons learned:

1.  Learn and practice how to manually override your slideout motor when components fail.  Preferably before it happens.

2.  Yes, control boards required a constant 12 volt source when the associated appliance/device is turned on.

3.  Always have a second multimeter with you.  The "reliable one" I had with me was giving me bad voltage readings and really hampering troubleshooting the electrical issues encountered.

4.  To eliminate the converter (converts shore/generator power or 120v to 12 volt) as a problem, see if it charges the battery...if it does, it's not the converted.  Wasted a lot of time thinking it was fuses on the converter, in the end I couldn't even get at the screws that mount it to the floor under the fridge, dang RV builders.