Mike and Carol

A couple of weeks ago we took a short trip to Tennessee (battery box repair at Oliver). Our hot water tank worked fine on the way there, when we picked our trailer up after a day at the Oliver service our hot water wouldn’t work on shore power. Propane worked fine. At first I thought maybe the repair guys had done something but it turns out they had nothing to do with the problem. Before the trip I installed two new Epoch 300aH batteries and in my zeal to turn the PD4045 on to equalize I hooked up to my home 30a forgetting that I was winterized, empty hot tank but the switch left on! The heating element burned out. I ordered a new element, replaced the burned out element, problem solved. So why did I not have hot water with a new element that was working fine for a week? So, I started checking. First was the new element, measured resistance across the two terminals with the wires disconnected and got about 10.4 ohms, so it was good. Then I took the cover off of the thermostat switch and measured resistance for it and the ECO (emergency cut off) switch and they were both good. You can remove the cover for the heating element but if you want to take the element out you must remove the gas tube in front of it. To remove the cover for the thermostat switch I had to loosen the propane inlet tube that covers the bottom cover screw. Behind the cover is a thermostat switch and ECO for the 120v side on the left and the same set up for the 12v/propane on the right. I popped out the on/off switch and measured across the two terminals and it checked out okay. So, I turned on shore power and measured voltage across the terminals on the back of the heating element. I got a variable reading that bounced around between about 60v and 80v. When I touched ground (tank mounting screw) the voltage went to a steady 120v. So now I had to find the loose wire that was causing the low, fluctuating voltage. I started at the fuse/breaker box under the dinette. I checked all the connections, everything tight. I found the cable connected to the hot water breaker and followed in down to a bundle that ran under the pantry, bed and around the back of the trailer, under the furnace and up to the hot water tank. It looked like a continuous run so I took the cover off of the junction box where the cable connected to the tank. Bingo! The cable has three wires, a bare copper, a black and a yellow. The bare copper was connected to the ground screw, the black wire was connected to the tank black wire but the wire nut was melted through to the coil in the nut. The yellow wire was totally burned and not much was left of the wire nut. It appears the wire nuts were not properly installed during installation, it was the first time I removed that cover. Pictures below. There was enough slack in the trailer cable to get to new wire. On the tank there was no slack so I didn’t have much to work with once I cut back the burned wire. The tank had solid wire, the cable was stranded wire. That can be tricky. I made sure I had a bit more of the stranded sticking above the solid so the nut would grab both. I did a serious pull test when finished. Hot water restored. Fortunately I had help during this process. Ken @mountainoliver was answering my texting and offering sage advice while I was scratching my head and rubbing my chin trying to figure out what was going on. Bottom line, don’t be afraid to tackle issues with your trailer! Also, if you have a hot water tank, it might be a good idea to check your power connection. It’s one screw and easy to do. The simplicity of the Suburban hot water tank makes it fairly straightforward to troubleshoot and repair. Plus, there are a bunch of YouTube videos that go over everything. Here’s the mess I found in the junction box. This box is on the upper right side of the tank as you are looking at it from the back bed opening. The cover is held on with one small screw. Another view… One more… What was left of one of the wire nuts…

Here’s a thread that has pics and instructions for replacing the glass (and adding shutters). Window shutter thread

Asking a ridiculous amount means they didn’t want the job either. I’ve seen folks do that before.

I rewired my D35 due to intermittent brake disconnects. I know of one other owner who did the same (and first told me of the solution). When I pulled the wires there were several spots where the insulation was gone. There was about 3 or 4 feet of excess wire and my theory is that it was bunched up causing it to rub inside the axle. Once a new wire was zip tied to the outside of the axle my intermittent disconnect disappeared. It’s obviously not a common problem and I wouldn’t change anything or rerun the wires if there were no issues. I’ve now got the D52 axles and they are wired however the factory wired them. Mike

We arrived in Hohenwald this evening for our appointment to get our battery box fixed. We’re the only ones here in the campground, so I hope that means our trailer will get their full attention tomorrow! We stayed at Clear Springs COE campground on Wright Patman Lake just outside of Texarkana on the Texas side last night. We’ve stayed there many times, it’s about a days drive from San Antonio, a good stop over when heading east. Here we are at the Oliver campground. We have it all to ourselves.

My understanding is that the axles come prewired with the brakes. Like the smaller axles I assume that the brake wires are run inside. During my torque sessions underneath the trailer with the new springs I didn’t see any wires run along the outside. Mike

Finger lickin’ good!

We enjoy going to Goose Island State Park and visiting Rockport. It’s an easy getaway from north San Antonio! Mike

Yes! It was certainly the problem with our brakes for over a year until we figured it out. I know of others who also had the same issue.

John, thanks. I’m using 2/0 cables. I asked the Epoch guy and he said 2/0 or bigger. I also have some longer M8 bolts that I ordered just in case. The bolts that came with the batteries work fine. I’m happy with the upgrade!

Battle Borns gone. Epoch’s installed. Hold down straps aren’t on yet.

We’ve never used a booster for our TST. Works fine.

The stock suspension is fine. We replaced everything after 9 years and a lot of miles (100K+). There have been some cases of leaf spring failure, but when I had ours replaced they looked fine. I’m just a believer in preventive maintenance (too many years in the Army). There was no reason to replace my axles, except to upgrade from the 3500 lb axles and also get bigger brakes and never lube bearings. Our camping is a combination of nice roads and not so nice roads. Mike

The first time I replaced brakes was just a couple of years ago, I’ve got 110Ksih miles on the trailer now. 24K is way too soon for normal braking. I also agree with the comments on bearings, they should not need replacing, just repacking. Mike

Thanks, Ken, nice write up! I’m replacing my 3 BB’s this week with the same Epoch batteries. I will attempt to test the BB’s also once I get them out. Mike