Road Trip

GENECARP

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 4, 2009
Messages
259
Location
New York
Just a quick check in, just moved the Rig up from Myrtle Beach to Connecticut, took I 95 the whole way, that road is a mess. We maintained about 70 mph the whole time, smooth as silk, I love driving my truck..Always on the look out for other conversions, heading southbound I saw 2 T/C's.....traveling together, both white, one looked like a stacker, I hit them with Air Horns, don't know why, but it's always exciting to see another conversion on the road. One more thing, after pulling into our new seasonal site I began to smell something funny, almost like the old Catylitic smell, rotten eggs, after a few minutes of that we began to smell burning rubber or something, the smell lasted for several hrs, no smoke, just smell. I started her up, idled for awhile, all gauges checked out, crawled all over the engine and underside, Nothing, no burned wires, nothing to be seen....Of coarse this has me a bit concerned, I will continue to look and hunt, I will be on the road again in a month or so for a short road trip, I sure would like to find the problem before that.....Happy Camping, Gene...
 
I had that same rotten eggs smell in my race trailer, took a while to track down. Turned out to be battery acid from the coach battery (I only had one at the time, now two) I was smelling. The 12v power supply/battery charger (parallax) had gone bad and was overcharging the battery and boiling the acid creating the intermittent odor. Kept getting to be more often we could smell it til we just kept sticking our noses into strange places to track it down. Our battery is hidden behind the fifth wheel landing gear, so we finally found the smell in the hole for the jack handle. That was a "wtf" moment til I remembered the battery was behind the panel as well. Ended up replacing the "guts" of the charger, and by that time the battery was shot as well so I replaced it with dual batteries. Been fine since. Good luck.
 
Thanks for the suggestion, I will check out the batteries and keep you posted, G
 
Great news you got to drive it, Gene. I'm nearing the end of a three week road trip myself. I went to California and followed the Tour of California. We've put over 4k miles on. Love this truck. This is the first time in the mountains, man does it fly. Anyhow, about that smell. Could it possibly have come from your holding tanks? Maybe one of the traps was dry for the grey tank? Like under a sink or shower? Or could the valve have leaked in the toilet bowl and you had no water standing in it to block the smell from there? On our trip my toilet valve got a bit clogged with toilet paper so the water would leak down from the bowl and then you could smell the stink from the black tank. I had to clean it out and then it sealed and no more smell. Sounds like your smell went away? That's why I'm thinking maybe one of the sink traps had gone dry and then when somebody ran water down it it stopped smelling.
 
Good thought Bob but this follow up smell after the Rotten Egg thing was definately burning Wire or Rubber.....More to Come, G
 
Hot Rod, you are the closest to the problem, I show up this weekend, walk around the Rig, pass the compartment that houses the house batteries, notice one of the battery covers on the ground, WTF, that should not be, open the door, front battery blown wide open, acid and Residue everywhere, trays all gunked up. Cleaned it all up, replaced the one battery, I know the other 5 are close behind, I just want to research, price, and buy 6 new batteries at the same time, thanks Gene...
 
Wow, how come it blew up? Was your truck stored in a freezing environment? I think if it was it might have been better to take the batteries out and store them above freezing? With a tender on them to keep them charged but not overcharged? What a mess. Good thing it didn't blow while you had your head in there.
 
Yea Bob, even though it wintered in Myrtle beach the nights got cold and the batteries went unattended for 3 months at a clip. I will be adding a small solar panel to keep the batteries charged when in storage.G
 

Try RV LIFE Pro Free for 7 Days

  • New Ad-Free experience on this RV LIFE Community.
  • Plan the best RV Safe travel with RV LIFE Trip Wizard.
  • Navigate with our RV Safe GPS mobile app.
  • and much more...
Try RV LIFE Pro Today
Back
Top